But really, the Sudanese government wants to help. Of course it does.
MESHKEL, Sudan, July 1 -- After U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan visited one of the best-maintained refugee camps in this war-rattled region of western Sudan on Thursday, he climbed back into an SUV and headed down a bumpy desert road. He was scheduled to tour a scene of even greater desperation in what has been called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, this time a camp that has not received any international aid. But when his convoy arrived at the settlement, the 3,000 people who had been living there Wednesday afternoon were gone. Instead, there was only a muddy field with a few soldiers stepping through the muck.
In a move that befuddled U.N. officials, the Sudanese villagers in the camp were moved overnight and in the morning, said Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs. They were loaded into government trucks "apparently to be dumped," he said, at the gates of the already overcrowded Abu Shouk camp, 12 miles away, where 40,000 people live in a stretch of open desert. A U.N. team confirmed that the villagers had been moved to Abu Shouk. [...] The movement of the refugees highlighted an ongoing concern among aid workers here that the government is working hard to play down the crisis in Darfur as a string of high-level international delegations arrive.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who visited Abu Shouk on Wednesday, said any efforts to cover up the crisis were ultimately futile because he had a clear picture of what was going on. He stressed at a news conference after visiting the camp that the Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, "had to be broken," and he said the government in Khartoum must take action "within days or weeks" to deal with the crisis. The United States began circulating a draft U.N. resolution Wednesday that would place sanctions on the militiamen and ban the Sudanese and other governments from arming, equipping or training them.
During his visit, Annan also emphasized that security was the top priority and told the governor of El Fasher it was vital to assure the displaced villagers that no one would force them to return home without guarantees of protection from the marauding Arab militias....
Of course, the problem is, as has been mentioned once or twice, the Sudanese government does not seem to be interested in the slightest in protecting the villagers form the "marauding Arab militias," so those people may well be stuck in western Darfur provice for ages to come, or continue moving into eastern Chad, which really can't accommodate them.
Posted by iain at July 02, 2004 01:51 PM
