The UN began a three-day fact-finding mission in troubled Darfur yesterday to establish whether the Sudanese government has fulfilled its pledges to improve security and rein in Arab militia accused of months of atrocities.
Three UN teams, accompanied by Sudanese government officials, will fan out across the western region, before presenting their assessment to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Aug. 31.
PHOTO: AP
The UN Security Council has threatened Khartoum with penalties if it doesn't make sufficient progress in disarming Arab militiamen, known as janjaweed, accused of killing and maiming black African farmers and burning villages across Darfur.
"We are coming very close to the moment of assessment. The clock is ticking," said UN special representative Jan Pronk at a news conference in the Sudanese capital Wednesday.
"The responsibility is for the authorities in Khartoum not only to make promises but to implement the promises, and to show that it does make sense to continue on this road. If not, the international community has to consider what is necessary," he said.
The UN says Darfur has become the scene of the world's worst humanitarian crisis since African rebels rose against the government in February last year, claiming discrimination in the distribution of scarce resources.
International rights groups have accused the government of arming the janjaweed to crush the revolt -- an accusation it denies, although last week the UN said Khartoum acknowledged it has "control" over some fighters.
On Aug. 10, the Sudanese government and the UN signed an action plan to create havens in Darfur within 30 days so civilians can search for food and water and farm without fear of attack.
The plan requires the cessation of all military operations by government forces, militias, and rebel groups in areas around camps where thousands of displaced people have taken refuge, as well as near towns and villages that still have large populations.
"The visits aim to check the implementation of these commitments," Radhia Achouri, spokesperson for the UN Mission in Sudan, told reporters.
"The most crucial part of this is to demonstrate an irreversible, substantial and sustainable improvement of security in the areas selected by the government of Sudan," she said.
She said the Security Council was scheduled to meet to consider Pronk's report on Sept. 2.
Pronk, accompanied by Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, will head the team in Geneina, West Darfur. UN deputy humanitarian coordinator Erick De Mul will visit Al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur, while deputy special representative Manuel Aranda Da Silva will visit the south.
All three plan to check on conditions and humanitarian access to some of the 147 camps for displaced people. The UN says about 1.4 million people have been driven from their homes and are now in some 147 camps throughout Darfur's three states, while another 180,000 Darfur refugees have fled into neighboring Chad.
At African Union-brokered peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, a government delegate on Wednesday modified Sudan's previous rejection of an international peacekeeping force for Darfur. He said the government had no objections to an African Union force.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
RSS