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Refugee chief 'not impressed'
19/05/2004 14:16 - (SA)
Washington - Rebels and government forces may be talking peace in Sudan's civil war, but minority ethnic groups are still being attacked and more than one million people have been displaced, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers said on Tuesday.
Lubbers, who in March visited Chad where at least 120 000 refugees from Sudan have fled, described the region's refugee crisis as a "humanitarian catastrophe" that is "one of the world's gravest emergencies".
Government-sponsored Arab militias are conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing aimed at driving the non-Arab minorities out of the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
On May 11 the Sudanese government and southern rebels told US officials they agreed to the terms of a peace deal to end their long-running civil war, but a formal agreement has yet to be signed.
UN officials has described Darfur as a region gripped by a "reign of terror", where pro-government forces are committing massive human rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity.
"It is unacceptable to celebrate a peace agreement while Darfur continues being bombarded and people are terrorised," Lubbers said during a visit to Washington.
The UNHCR has resources to relocate only about half the refugees in Chad to camps beyond the border, Lubbers said.
The government in Sudan, Africa's largest nation, is dominated by Arabs but the country is also home to large non-Arab minorities, including in Darfur.
Lubbers spoke after meeting with secretary of state Colin Powell and top US officials - the same day Powell removed Sudan from a blacklist of countries deemed not to be co-operating fully with US anti-terrorism efforts.
Washington however remains critical of Sudan over the Darfur situation, and state department spokesperson Richard Boucher stressed the removal showed merely an improvement in Khartoum's anti-terrorism cooperation.
Sudan remains on the "state sponsors of terrorism" list in part because anti-Israeli groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the United States has designated as terrorist organisations, continue to have a presence in Khartoum.
- AFP
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