Another MSF worker held
2005-05-31 20:08
Khartoum - A second aid worker for Medecins Sans Frontieres has been arrested in Sudan for the release of a report on rape in the war-torn Darfur region, said the group on Tuesday, drawing a strong rebuke for Khartoum from the United Nation's human rights chief.
The medical aid group's regional co-ordinator in Darfur, Vincent Hoedt, was arrested early on Tuesday, a day after MSF's Dutch mission head in Sudan, Paul Foreman, was detained in Khartoum, later to be released on bail.
Geoff Prescott, director of MSF-Netherlands, said: "These arrests are totally unacceptable. The government is punishing humanitarian workers for doing their job for the victims of the conflict in Darfur."
In a recent report entitled "The Crushing Burden of Rape: Sexual Violence in Darfur", the charity outlined that 500 women had been treated for rape in four and a half months in the western Sudanese province.
Crimes against Sudanese state
They said militias or armed men attacked them.
An aid source said on condition of anonymity that Foreman, who had been accused of crimes against the Sudanese state, was being questioned again on Tuesday, while Hoedt was being sent from the Darfur provincial capital, Nyala, to Khartoum.
An MSF official said: "We don't know whether he is being escorted by the security and the authorities ordered that he would not be accompanied by any MSF staff on his trip to the capital."
MSF's Dutch branch said the group, whose name meant, Doctors Without Borders, was also accused of "espionage, publication of false reports and of undermining the Sudanese state".
Bart Rijs of MSF-Netherlands said the UN's special envoy for Sudan, Dutch diplomat, Jan Pronk, was due to meet Sudan's president Omar al-bashir on Tuesday, and was expected to discuss the arrests.
Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged the Sudanese government to allow aid workers to "work freely and without fear of retaliation".
'Kill and pillage with impunity'
She said: "This is a very disturbing development."
Arbour said targeting the humanitarian community "will not only do a disservice to the people of Darfur, it will draw attention away from the real criminals, those who continue to rape, kill and pillage with impunity".
She said MSF had done "nothing more than record these horrendous crimes and try to focus critically needed attention on them".
"Rape and sexual violence are very real features of the life of the women of Darfur."
The UN rights chief said: "This is the conclusion of our monitors, of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur and of all serious investigations into the unfolding human rights crisis in the region."
MSF emphasised that the arrest of two senior co-ordinators in Sudan severely undermined its ability to deliver assistance in Darfur, where it was working in 29 locations with 180 expatriates and 3 000 Sudanese staff.