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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SUDAN: Deaths of aid workers threaten Darfur operations
NAIROBI, 3 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - Escalating violence in the volatile Darfur region has left more aid workers dead over the past two weeks than during all the previous years of conflict, jeopardising one of the world’s largest aid operations, a United Nations official said on Thursday.
"During the second half of July, we lost more aid workers than over the previous two years," said Mike McDonagh, senior humanitarian affairs officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Khartoum.
According to McDonagh, the main reason for the violence against humanitarian workers was the tensions and rumours among the local population, many of whom are living in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs).
"We are now in the third - and for some the fourth - rainy season and the IDPs are still living in camps," McDonagh said. "There is enormous frustration and a lack of hope among many of them, especially the Fur [ethnic community]."
Oxfam, the international NGO, announced this week that a Sudanese staff member had been killed on Friday in West Darfur, while another international NGO, Tearfund, confirmed that a Sudanese driver for its relief team working in the same state had been killed on Thursday.
On 20 July, three Sudanese governmental workers of the water and sanitation department (WES) were beaten to death by a mob in an IDP camp just outside Zalingei. The previous day, a driver working for a local NGO and partner of the faith-based humanitarian operation of ACT-Caritas was killed in South Darfur.
Earlier, a driver working for an international NGO was killed in El Geneina by bandits; an aid worker from the NGO Relief International was shot dead by an armed gang in North Darfur and a watchman for Care International was killed in Kalma IDP camp in South Darfur.
Another reason for the recent insecurity has been the fragmentation of various rebel groups following the signing of the 5 May Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) - between the Sudanese government and the largest of the three main rebel factions, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) under the command of Minni Minnawi - and escalating fighting between the signatories and the non-signatories of the DPA.
Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur, the leader of another faction of the SLM/A with a predominantly Fur following, and Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), refused to sign the DPA, claiming it was unacceptable as it did not fulfil their key demands.
"The escalating fighting is making humanitarian access very difficult and has greatly reduced planting [by the local communities], especially in North Darfur [State]," McDonagh said.
Turid Laegreid, head of the OCHA sub-office for North Darfur, warned on Tuesday that "access to the local population in North Darfur is at an all-time low".
The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), announced on Thursday that it had suspended many of its medical activities - "leaving thousands of patients untreated everyday" - after having been attacked in several locations in Darfur in the past weeks.
"Most fighting is taking place in North Darfur and more NGO cars have been hijacked since the signing of the DPA [in May 2006] than over the previous years," McDonagh added. "The splintering of rebel groups has resulted in a myriad new groups that are completely undisciplined and need cars to get started - NGOs are an easy target."
According to OCHA, violent clashes between Sudanese government forces, allied militias and rebel groups have displaced 25,000 civilians in North Darfur State over the past three weeks alone.
Amnesty International reported on Monday that between 4 and 8 July, some 72 people were killed, 103 injured and 39 women raped in targeted attacks against civilians in the Korma region, 70 km northwest of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The attackers were members of the Minni Minnawi faction, reportedly supported by the Sudan armed forces and government-aligned militia of the Janjawid.
Other sources in the region said some of the displaced were being prevented from reaching the relative safety of the IDP camps. "Previously, the Janjawid wouldn’t really care what happened after they had pillaged a village - the fleeing population would cause more displacement and facilitate their scorched-earth campaign," he said. "Minnawi wants to hide his crimes, however, and is trying to prevent people from reaching the towns - leaving them enormously vulnerable."
The conflict, which started in 2003, has displaced 1.8 million people in Darfur. Approximately 210,000 Sudanese refugees have fled Darfur into neighbouring Chad, while an estimated 15,000 Chadian refugees have crossed into Darfur over the past eight months. About 14,000 aid workers are providing humanitarian assistance to the population.
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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 2006
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