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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SUDAN: Relief agency pulls out of Darfur region
NAIROBI, 21 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - The British charity, Save the Children (SC UK), has discontinued its humanitarian operations in the western Sudanese region of Darfur following the deaths of four staff members in two separate incidents over the past two months.
"We are devastated that we are unable to continue to offer health care, nutritional support, child protection and education to the approximately 250,000 children and family members served by our current programmes in North and South Darfur," Mike Aaronson, director-general of SC UK, said in a press statement on Tuesday.
"We just cannot continue to expose our staff to the unacceptable risks they face as they go about their humanitarian duties in Darfur," he added.
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan, Jan Pronk, said he regretted that SC UK "had to take the difficult decision to terminate its operations in Darfur".
Condemning acts of violence targeting humanitarian workers, in a statement issued on Tuesday, Pronk urged all parties to abide by the principles of international humanitarian law and the terms of the ceasefire Agreement of 8 April 2004 and the Abuja Protocols of 9 November 2004 on security and humanitarian Issues.
Two SC UK employees, both Sudanese were killed on 13 December, when the convoy of humanitarian vehicles in which they were travelling came under fire in South Darfur.
On 10 October, a landmine in North Darfur killed two other SC UK workers - a British programme manager and a Sudanese water engineer - while their driver was seriously injured.
The African Union (AU) blamed rebel forces for both incidents.
Meanwhile, one of the helicopters used by the AU monitoring team was hit by bullets while flying in the Labardo area of South Darfur on Sunday, Ki Doulaye, an official in the AU's directorate of peace and security, told IRIN.
Nobody was hurt in the incident, which occurred in a government-controlled area, Doulaye said. He added that AU monitoring operations had not been interrupted by the shooting incident.
"Our team is continuing with its monitoring work - we have not suspended anything," Doulaye told IRIN by telephone from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where the AU has its headquarters.
The government was carrying out an "operation" in Labardo, near Nyala, the main town in South Darfur, when the AU helicopter came under fire, Doulaye said. The AU was unable to confirm the identity of the group responsible for the gunfire.
The war in Darfur pits the Sudanese government troops and militias allegedly allied to the government against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalisation and discrimination of the region's inhabitants by the state.
The conflict has displaced an estimated 1.45 million people and sent another 200,000 fleeing across the border into Chad. The UN has described the situation in Darfur as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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