Military

DATE=11/10/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=UNHCR / SUDAN (L-ONLY)

BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The United Nations Refugee Agency, U-N-H-C-R, says it has evacuated 62 local and international staff from the Sudanese town of Kassala, near the border with Eritrea, after the town came under artillery fire before dawn Wednesday. Lisa Schlein in Geneva reports the Agency says it has relocated its staff further inland to the town of Showak.

TEXT: The U-N Refugee Agency says shells exploded in the immediate vicinity of the U-N-H-C-R office during the pre-dawn attack. There was fierce small arms fire, but the building was not hit.

Sudanese authorities say anti-government rebels were behind the attack, which reportedly killed more than 130 people.

U-N-H-C-R spokesman, Kris Janowski, says during the attack, plainclothes Sudanese army officers raided the Agency's office in Kassala. He says they detained two local staff and seized communications equipment.

///JANOWSKI ACT///

Once we got to Khartoum and protested the seizure of our equipment and the detention of the people, they got the people on the ground, the army, to release those two one straight afterwards, the other a bit later. Nonetheless, they kept the equipment, which is also unacceptable from our point of view.

///END OF ACT///

There are an estimated 27-thousand Eritrean refugees in the Kassala area. Mr. Janowski says the U-N-H-C-R had an unusually large number of staff in Kassala at the time of the incident. This was because the Agency was in the middle of registering the Eritrean refugees to see who wanted to go home. He says the head count, for now, is on hold. He says it is not clear why the U-N aid workers in Kassala were detained.

///2ND JANOWSKI ACT///

It's unacceptable to detain United Nations staff, be it local staff and it's unacceptable to take United Nations equipment. We were working there with the Sudanese Refugee Commission, working to help the Sudanese deal with the Eritrean refugees, so on and so forth.

///END ACT///

Mr. Janowski says calm appears to have returned to Kassala so the U-N aid workers may go back there at some point. (Signed)

NEB/LS/GE/KBK