Military

6 August 2004 – The Sudanese Government has finalized an agreement reached earlier this week between its Foreign Minister and the senior United Nations envoy to the country paving the way for Khartoum to take detailed steps in the next 30 days to disarm the militias accused of conducting deadly attacks against civilians in the troubled Darfur region.

A formal copy of the agreement between Jan Pronk, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan, and Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail will be issued on Monday, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters in New York today.

On Wednesday night the two men reached agreement on a deal committing Khartoum to disarm the Janjaweed militias and improve security for the estimated 1.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Darfur.

Mr. Pronk said that if the agreement is implemented, then he hoped the Security Council would see Khartoum was making "substantial progress" towards meeting previously expressed commitments to disarm the notorious Janjaweed and restore security.

In a resolution adopted last Friday, the Council said it would consider measures under Article 41 of the UN Charter, which provides for imposing economic penalties and severing diplomatic relations, if the Sudanese Government did not make progress on those commitments.

Meanwhile, Mr. Eckhard said the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights hopes to deploy all eight of its observers to Darfur's three regions, as well as in Khartoum, over the next few days.

In neighbouring Chad, where about 200,000 refugees have fled to escape the Janjaweed attacks and fighting between Government forces and two Darfur rebel groups, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has started work on constructing a camp at Treguine in the Adre region.

About 17,000 refugees are expected to be transferred to the Treguine camp, which is being established to relieve overcrowding in a UNHCR camp at Breidjing.