Military

18 August 2004 – The Sudanese Government is expected to provide United Nations officials with details on further steps it will take to meet earlier pledges to restore security to the strife-torn Darfur region and to protect the area's massive population of internally displaced persons (IDPs), a UN spokesman reported today.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail is likely to present a list of the Janjaweed militia groups - who stand accused of brutal and deadly attacks against civilians in Darfur - it can control during the fourth meeting of the Joint Implementation Mechanism (JIM) in Khartoum.

Briefing reporters today at UN Headquarters in New York, spokesman Fred Eckhard said the Sudanese authorities will instruct those militias to stop their attacks and give up their weapons.

Starting next week, the members of JIM will travel to Darfur, a remote region in Sudan's far west, to assess what progress has been made by Khartoum in meeting its pledges.

The JIM was set up by Khartoum and the UN last month to monitor the commitments made by the two sides to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, widely viewed as the worst prevailing in the world today.

There are more than 1.2 million IDPs living across Darfur, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Most fled their home villages because of Janjaweed attacks or fighting between Government forces and two rebel groups. Another 200,000 refugees live in neighbouring Chad.

With many IDPs at risk of disease or malnourishment, the World Food Programme (WFP) has stepped up its relief operations as the annual rainy season - which makes road travel almost impossible in some areas - reaches its apparent peak.

Mr. Eckhard said the WFP was concentrating its latest airlifts around El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, which has been hardest hit by the rains.

Meanwhile, Jan Pronk, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan, today spoke to John Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), by telephone about the ongoing peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya, to resolve the long-running conflict in Sudan's south.

UN officials have said they are hopeful that the SPLA and Khartoum can reach an agreement this year to end the civil war in southern Sudan, which has raged since 1983 and left more than 3.5 million people internally displaced or forced to live as refugees in neighbouring countries.

UN humanitarian agencies have expressed concerns about recent reports that some of the thousands of IDPs returning voluntarily to southern Sudan from the north in anticipation of an end to the war are being harassed and abused.