Sudan accused of cover-up

2006-04-04 20:51

Matthew Lee

Nairobi - Blocked by Sudan from visiting Darfur and refugees in neighbouring Chad, the UN's top humanitarian official on Tuesday accused Khartoum of trying to hide badly deteriorating conditions there.

Jan Egeland said the reasons Sudanese officials gave for denying him access to Darfur and then over-flight rights to see Darfur refugees in Chad were "utter nonsense" and suggested Khartoum had a more nefarious motive.

"I think the main reason is that they don't want me to see the tens of thousands of people being displaced as we speak today," he told reporters in the Kenyan capital after being forced to cancel his trips.

Egeland said his presence in Darfur and visits with refugees in Chad would have drawn much-needed attention to the worsening situation in the troubled western Sudanese region where, he said, international interest was waning.

"The international community seems to be slacking on this last leg of the marathon to bring peace and security to the largest country in Africa," he said, noting chronic funding shortages and escalating violence.

"We are losing ground," he said of UN mission in Darfur, currently its largest humanitarian operation in the world.

Pressure

"It is again becoming perhaps the worst crisis in the world."

"It has to change," Egeland said, urging world powers to place massive pressure on Khartoum to act to stop increasing violence and harassment directed at civilians and aid workers, including the obstruction of his trip.

He blamed Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir for personally preventing him from travelling north after dismissing Khartoum's claims that his visit was inconvenient and his security could not be guaranteed.

Egeland said claims that his Norwegian nationality posed a problem because of the uproar over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers was equally spurious.

"The president of Sudan is responsible for all of this," he said, adding that he understood UN chief Kofi Annan was calling Beshir to protest Sudan's moves to bar his envoy from visiting Darfur and Chad.

About 300 000 people have died and up to two million have been displaced in Darfur, where the Sudanese army and allied Arab militia are fighting rebels from minority African tribes.

- AFP