Sudan refugees: 'Losing hope'

2004-08-17 08:54

Khartoum - Sudanese authorities have restored aid deliveries to a camp for 90 000 displaced people in Darfur, United Nations officials said on Monday, three days after soldiers reportedly closed the camp following a mob killing of an alleged pro-government militiaman.

More than 400 Sudanese fled Darfur to Chad during the weekend, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' spokesperson for east Chad said.

The refugees are, "a larger number than we have seen in the past two months but it is by no means a new wave," Eduardo Cue said from eastern Chad.

"Lost hope in the peace process"

"What the refugees are telling us (is that) some had crossed back to Darfur and then have come back again because they have basically lost hope in the peace process," Cue said.

The top UN envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, told government officials that he was concerned about the fact that "the Janjaweed militia was still active and continued to be a threat," a spokesperson for the UN Mission in Sudan said.

Pronk was referring to the pro-government Arab militia that is accused of waging a brutal campaign to drive African Sudanese out of Darfur province. More than one million people have been forced to flee their homes since African rebels rose against the government in February 2003.

The government denies backing the Janjaweed. But at the end of July, the UN Security Council gave Sudan a month to disarm the Janjaweed and other militia.

Radhia Achouri said that Pronk met Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on Sunday for a meeting of the joint UN-Sudan committee that is supposed to oversee implementation of an agreed plan to restore peace to Darfur in 30 days.

Achouri quoted Pronk as saying that while the government has shown the political will to implement the plan in the first 10 days, he was "concerned at the lack of progress registered so far on the ground."

On Monday, Pronk met Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, who emphasised "the sincere desire of the Sudanese government to normalise the situation in Darfur," state television reported.

Foreign peacekeepers would not be allowed

In New York, UN spokesperson Fred Eckhard said Pronk had spoken to government officials on Sunday about the closure of Kalma camp for three days.

UN officials in Sudan and Kenya had reported Sudanese soldiers as preventing aid from reaching about 90 000 displaced people in Kalma, which lies east of the South Darfur capital of Nyala. The soldiers acted after camp inhabitants killed an alleged member of the Janjaweed on Friday.

Deputy Information Minister Abdel Dafe Khattib had denied the camp was closed.

Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir reiterated Monday his government would not allow foreign peacekeepers to operate in Sudan. - AP

- AP