'I want to see for myself'

2005-05-28 12:26

Simon Apiku

Nyala - United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan visited Darfur on Saturday after warning warring parties and international donors that time was running out to broker peace and avoid an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.

The UN chief toured Kalma, a camp hosting around 110&000 people from Darfur displaced by two years of famine and conflict between ethnic minority rebels and government forces.

"This is one of my major operations and I think it is important to come and see my team and also to assess the situation," he said.

"This is totally not acceptable and we will work with the authorities to make sure the IDPs (internally displaced people) are protected," the UN chief added after listening to tribal leaders' accounts of human rights violations.

Suleiman Abu Bakr, speaking on behalf of the tribal leaders, claimed that 56 people had been killed in the camp since March and 580 women sexually assaulted in recent months.

He blamed the attacks on Sudanese police and the infamous Janjaweed, the pro-government Arab militias which the government has used as proxies in its scorched-earth campaign to crush the Darfur rebellion.

The region is facing chronic food shortages because farmers have not been able to sow crops ahead of the forthcoming rainy season amid ongoing violence in the western region, the ICRC said in a statement.

As aid agencies struggle to cope with the flow of starving displaced Darfurians, the African Union peace mission in the region was also seeking to boost its security operation.

The pan-African body announced on Friday, after Annan warned that the world was running "a race against time" to solve the Darfur crisis, that it had received $292m in donations.

The AU wants more than $460m in cash, military equipment and logistical support to boost its current 2 700-strong truce monitoring operation to more than 7 700 by September.

Annan urged Nato, the European Union and individual countries to help the AU expand its operation in Darfur, a vast semi-arid region about the size of France.

Hedi Annabi, the deputy head of UN peacekeeping operations, said AU troops were effective in helping to stem the violence where deployed but underlined the importance of beefing up the force.

"Instability, violence and civilian suffering in this troubled region continue," Annabi said in a briefing to the UN Security Council.

The UN chief welcomed the AU donations but stressed that additional resources were needed to cover Darfur's relief effort and the reconstruction of Sudan's pacified South.

He warned that lack of funding in south Sudan, where a landmark peace deal was clinched between southern rebels and Khartoum's government in January, may jeopardise the agreement's implementation.

- AFP