UN: Limited progress in Darfur
2004-08-28 22:13
El Fasher - On the eve of a UN security council deadline for action in Darfur, UN officials made it clear on Saturday that Khartoum was still not doing enough to end suffering caused by a bloody clampdown on rebels, despite government protests to the contrary.
After a three-day tour of the region, a UN team welcomed improvements in relief distribution to the 1.5 million people who have been forced from their homes or seen their livelihoods destroyed.
But it added that persistent reports of abuses meant there was still "very little" readiness to return to their homes among the ethnic minority villagers displaced by the government's onslaught against the rebels.
Huge makeshift tent cities of tens of thousands of people have sprung up across the region to accommodate the displaced, and the UN's deputy co-ordinator for humanitarian affairs, Erick Deumuhl, said the facilities there were "improving" with better health services and "more food coming".
However, Deumuhl declined to describe the advances as "significant."
He said the security situation around the camps was "still problematic," with many reports of "attacks and abuses when people venture outside".
"Work has to be done to make the police change from a control force to a protection force." he told reporters
in El Fasher.
He said this would require "additional training and a change in attitude" on the part of the police and other security forces.
"That is going to take time, I am afraid."
The UN official said the government had announced new structures to address the huge number of allegations of human rights abuses by the security forces and their militia allies, but noted that they had yet to be brought into operation.
"There is hardly any follow-up on cases that are brought to the attention of the authorities," he said.
"So that is an area that needs a lot of attention."
Deumuhl rejected government claims that large numbers of displaced people now felt secure enough to return to their homes.
"I think there is probably some, but it is still very little," he said.
His comments appeared to do little to change the assessment of a UN report already delivered to the warring parties in Darfur or that of UN envoy Jan Pronck.
UN wants promises fulfilled
"In Khartoum, we hear a lot of fine words, but the situation in Darfur has not changed much," Pronk told Khartoum dailies on Thursday.
"The UN doesn't want promises, but their fulfilment."
Despite the comments of Pronk and other UN officials, Sudanese ministers continued to insist that they were on track to meet their obligations.
Khartoum had met its "commitment to the plan of action fully," said humanitarian affairs minister Ibrahim Hamid Soliman.
Majzoub al-Khalifa, Sudan's chief negotiator at the peace talks in Abuja, added: "I think that the international community will realise that there is real progress on all sides - humanitarian, security and human rights sides," he said.