U.N. aid chief Jan Egeland on Darfur - Catastrophe coming if peacekeepers don''t get help by Associated Press 2:20pm 25th May, 2006   May 30, 2006    Brussels, Belgium (AP) -- The United Nations humanitarian chief warned Tuesday of a catastrophic situation developing in Darfur unless international donors act soon to bolster a beleaguered African peacekeeping force in the Sudanese province.    "We either get good news in the next few weeks, or we have catastrophic news later," Jan Egeland said in a telephone interview.    He said a major international conference would be held in June somewhere in Europe to try to boost humanitarian aid and assistance for the peacekeepers.    Egeland was in Brussels to meet top officials at NATO and the European Union. He said military powers should provide more resources to improve transport, communications, logistics, training and planning for the African peacekeepers.    However, he warned against deploying a Western military force, as some politicians in the United States have suggested.    "We have to be careful to calibrate the humanitarian and security response so it doesn''t provoke a reaction," Egeland said. "I''d like to see the African Union and the U.N. play the lead role there, NATO and other organizations can complement and very usefully complement our efforts."    A 7,300-member African Union force in place in Darfur has been largely unable to halt violence there despite a May 5 peace deal designed to end fighting that has killed nearly 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003.    NATO and the EU have provided airlift, training and other back up for the peacekeepers and have offered more help to bolster the AU troops before they are due to hand over to a U.N. force in September.    Egeland said the Africans need more trucks and helicopters to move swiftly around the vast region. He said African nations also needed to provide more and better-trained troops and said the African Union should urgently bolster the force''s mandate so it could better protect the local population.    "The African Union force has to be strengthened, it''s them that we have to empower," Egeland insisted. "What can be provided by military organizations, by member states of the U.N. and NATO is very welcome."    He painted a grim picture of the situation on the ground despite the peace agreement which raised hopes of an end to Darfur''s woes.    "I''m every morning bracing myself for more bad news coming out of Darfur," Egeland said. After reading the latest report from the region, "my hair was standing on my head," he said. "I got shivers reading that report, every single day there is an attack on humanitarian workers or civilians."    Egeland recently told the U.N. Security Council that the number of displaced people in South Darfur had tripled in the last four months to between 100,000-120,000. He complained local officials have blocked fuel deliveries and the movement of aid workers has been severely restricted.    In addition, areas of eastern Chad that border Darfur have been engulfed in turmoil, Egeland said. Aid groups have been forced to cut back staff and relief work because of insecurity and funding shortfalls.    Egeland said his talks at NATO and the EU were also look at the wider use of the military to help in humanitarian situations. He said military units had proven very helpful during the Asian tsunami, last year''s earthquake in Kashmir and the latest deadly quake in Indonesia.    He said an international conference would be held later this year bringing together military and humanitarian organizations to look at how to coordinate aid responses.    May 23, 2006    The Moment of Truth for Darfur - (UNA-USA Talks to Jan Egeland, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator).    UNA-USA: What hurdles are still standing in the way of getting a UN peace mission set up and secure in Darfur, to replace the African Union mission? How long might it take the get the mission in place?    Egeland: Intensive discussions are ongoing at many levels and we very much look forward to the Government of Sudan"s support and cooperation for a UN peace support operation. This is being handled by the Secretary-General and his Special Representative for the Sudan, Jan Pronk, in conjunction with the UN"s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). However, the Security Council has now decided that a technical assessment mission on the transition to a UN force should be deployed within the next week. Even after such a mission takes place, it will be a minimum of six months before a UN force would be operational.    Our main humanitarian concern remains the protection of civilians and ensuring that the population of Darfur receives lifesaving humanitarian assistance. The next few weeks will be absolutely critical for many people in Darfur and there is a real urgency to do all we can to strengthen the African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) immediately. The civilian population of Darfur and the humanitarians working to help them need greater security. When I visited Gereida in South Darfur recently, I saw for myself what the alternative to moving forward to provide greater security is—massive displacement, constant violence and attacks against civilians, and a few humanitarian organizations struggling to provide relief to the ever greater numbers of displaced.    The African Union (AU) has less than 7,000 troops to monitor a territory the size of Texas. Clearly, that force is not now able to provide security throughout Darfur. Thus, not only do we need to plan for an eventual larger UN force, but it is essential that we support and strengthen the AU force immediately to give it the capacity and credibility to protect the civilian population and help implement the peace agreement. And the government of Sudan must work with the AU force to improve security to protect civilians and humanitarians. All the parties in Darfur must exert control over the militias to ensure they stop attacking defenseless civilians.    UNA-USA: Do you consider the peace deal reached between the Sudanese government and the rebel groups to have been a step forward in the peace process? How will word about the deal be spread among the rebel groups in outlying areas, and how long might it realistically take for the accord to be implemented?    Egeland: With the conclusion of the Peace Agreement, we have come to the moment of truth for Darfur. There is finally a real chance to turn the corner toward peace. We must also recognize that the alternative to peace is catastrophe. With even more violence and attacks, our humanitarian operations would be unsustainable and we would have to withdraw our relief workers. People would begin to starve within weeks, not months.    The international community must now do all it can to help the government of Sudan and the other parties to the Peace Agreement to achieve the immediate goals of bringing all parties on board with and implementing the agreement, strengthening the AU force, accelerating the transition to a UN force, and making sure the humanitarian lifeline for more than three million people is secure and funded. We will all regret it if we fail to do everything we can to these ends. Jan Pronk began his own visit to Darfur shortly after my own to help with this task of convincing the political, military and other leaders that this is a good agreement; it is the only one we have.    UNA-USA: The US has been pressing for troops to be sent right to Darfur away. What else can the US do right now?    Egeland: While I was in the Sudan, President Bush announced that the United States would expedite the delivery of a significant amount of food aid—nearly 48,000 metric tons worth some $48 million—ahead of the US Congress" approval of the supplementary allocation of $225 million for Sudan, including $150 million for Darfur. This is a very welcome move, one which has helped to mitigate at least some of the ration cuts for Darfur that had been announced. Also, the United States role was and is crucial in bringing the parties in Darfur to agree on and to realize the Abuja Accord.    I was also heartened to see the turnout at last month"s rally for Darfur in Washington DC, and the support that the participants and the American Congress have given to increase humanitarian assistance and push the negotiations on a UN force for Darfur forward. This kind of grassroots pressure—where individual citizens recognize that we are all responsible to protect and assist our brothers toward a better future and advocate with their leaders to that end—is what I wish to see for all of our humanitarian endeavours. US citizens are setting an example that people the world over would do well to follow.    US citizens are setting an example that people the world over would do well to follow.    UNA-USA: As you and your team experienced while in Darfur, violence there is still uncontrolled. (On May 8, 2006, during Egeland"s visit to the Kalma camp in Darfur, a crowd of refugees protesting for UN peacekeepers to be deployed to the region rioted, broke the windows in Egeland"s convoy of vehicles and ultimately attacked and killed an African Union translator.) Do you see an end in sight to the violence?    Egeland: What happened following my visit to Kalma camp in South Darfur was unfortunate and unacceptable. The incident underscored that new and better security arrangements must be put into place in the camp and discussions are ongoing in this regard. I cannot help but feel that if the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the NGO that was expelled from its camp management position, had still been in the camp, it would have diverted some of the tension. Therefore, I welcome the decision of the Governor of South Darfur, which was confirmed for me by Sudanese Vice-President Taha, that NRC will be allowed to return to Kalma as camp coordinator. This will not just help to lower tensions, but also facilitate much needed preparations ahead of the rainy season. I also hope that the AMIS civilian police, whose colleague was killed in the violence, will be able quickly to return to Kalma and several other camps from which it has had to withdraw in recent days.    It is also essential that the humanitarians in Darfur have protection and the freedom to assist the civilian population. Large areas of Darfur remain inaccessible as a result of direct attacks and continued fighting. I welcome the government of Sudan"s commitment to provide 20,000 tons of cereal for humanitarian assistance for the civilians of Darfur, but hold that the government must continue to increase the assistance it provides to the civilian population, including by ensuring their security, which means exerting control over the militias. During my discussions with the government of Sudan, I asked that all relevant parts of the government receive the message that security must be restored where possible. The same message was given to SLA leaders in Gereida, including that the SLA must stop hijacking cars and creating lawlessness. This holds for all the parties to the conflict.    May 19, 2006    Darfur Relief effort said to Face Collapse, by Warren Hoge. (New York Times)    Jan Egeland, the chief United Nations aid coordinator, told the Security Council today that conditions in Darfur had deteriorated so drastically that the international assistance effort there faced collapse in weeks.    "The next few weeks will make or break," Mr. Egeland said, reporting on a trip he made last week to Sudan and Chad. "We can turn the corner towards reconciliation and reconstruction, or see an even worse collapse of our efforts to provide protection and relief to millions of people."    Among the immediate objectives he said had to be met were getting dissident groups to support a peace agreement that has been signed only by the government and the largest of three major rebel groups; providing immediate and substantial strengthening to the undermanned and underfinanced African Union mission now patrolling Darfur; taking concrete steps to integrate that force into a larger United Nations force; meeting international funding pledges for Darfur and re-establishing aid groups" access that he said represented a lifeline for close to four million people.    On Tuesday, the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for strict observance by all groups of the shaky peace accord, which was adopted in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on May 5. The council also ordered a speedup of plans for the new United Nations force, which is expected to replace the existing 7,000-member African Union force with up to 20,000 troops by October.    The council directed the Sudanese government to let a United Nations assessment team into Darfur in a week, but Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan, said today that the Khartoum government had not yet granted that permission.    Mr. Egeland said the Sudanese government had told him it would now lift restrictions on besieged aid workers that he said had effectively ended relief activities in large parts of the area.    "The attacks against relief workers have been relentless and are threatening our operations in many areas," he said. "Our staff, compounds, trucks and vehicles are being targeted literally on a daily basis."    He confirmed reports that the conflict had spilled across the border into Chad, where he said relief workers were being shot at, their trucks hijacked and displaced persons camps left "utterly exposed." Only 25 percent of the $179 million needed for Chad had been funded, he said, and the situation had become so fraught for Sudanese refugees who fled there to escape fighting that 13,000 of them had recently crossed back into their own country.    On a positive note, he said that a stepping up in donations had decreased a funding shortfall from 60 percent to 80 percent and would enable the World Food Program to cancel some of the ration cuts it had imposed.    There still was an overall shortfall of $389 million for Darfur, he said, and the Persian Gulf states, the growing economies of Asia and unnamed European countries that had reduced their donations from a year ago were not doing enough.
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