Humanitarian Situation in Darfur Deteriorating - Senior UN Official by Reuters / UN News 12:09pm 3rd Sep, 2007   03 Sep 2007    UN''s Ban in Sudan, warns Khartoum on human rights, by Patrick Worsnip. (Reuters)    U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave Sudan a warning on human rights after arriving on Monday to lay the groundwork for an end to the Darfur conflict through talks and deployment of thousands of peacekeepers.    Aides said Ban, on his first visit to Sudan, would seek commitment to his plan from Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and visit a refugee camp in the western Sudanese Darfur region. He met Bashir for dinner on Monday evening.    While Darfur will be the focus, his six-day tour will include a trip to southern Sudan, where a 2005 peace deal ending more than two decades of north-south civil war that killed 2 million people is on shaky ground, and visit neighbouring Chad and Libya.    International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict, which flared when rebel groups took up arms against the government, charging it with neglect, at 9,000.    Within hours of arriving, Ban told a Sudanese audience the world was changing its role as a "seemingly helpless witness" to the conflict and served notice that Khartoum''s human rights record was under scrutiny.    "We only have to look around us to see how far Sudan has to go in upholding human rights and protecting people from suffering," he told the Sudan United Nations Association.    "Justice is an important part of building and sustaining peace. A culture of impunity and a legacy of past crimes that go unaddressed can only erode the peace."    Last week, Ban sketched out a three-point approach to Darfur: deployment of 26,000 U.N. and African Union troops and police, approved by the Security Council in July, peace talks tentatively scheduled for October, and aid.    In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Monday, Ban said Bashir had promised him cooperation in a weekend telephone conversation. "He told me he will do everything to help the mission logistically," he said.    Invitations to the peace talks are due to be sent to some eight of around a dozen rebel factions.    "There has to be a political will inside the government of Sudan to move the negotiations and we think there is such a political will," said a senior U.N. official on the trip.    Ban''s trip comes against a background of a resurgence of violence in Darfur -- denounced as "simply unacceptable" by Ban -- between government and pro-government forces and rebel groups, and what U.N. officials say is worsening malnutrition.    While Bashir has assented to both the talks and the peacekeeping force, Western governments remain suspicious of his sincerity and Britain and France last week revived talk of sanctions if he does not cooperate.    But Western diplomats concede that some on the Security Council, including veto-holding China, oppose sanctions at present. China''s ambassador to Sudan said on Sunday that "sanctions cannot help to solve the problem."    In an apparent gesture of goodwill before Ban''s visit, a Sudanese official said on Sunday Khartoum was discussing the possible return of the country director of U.S-based aid agency CARE, expelled last week for alleged meddling in internal security. The United Nations had criticised the expulsion.    In Chad, Ban will hold talks with President Idriss Deby on the planned deployment of U.N.-backed European Union troops to tackle a crisis created by the flight of more than 200,000 Darfur refugees to Chad.    The U.N. chief''s visit to Libya is in acknowledgement of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi''s role in seeking to bring Darfur''s fractious rebel groups together.    (Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Milan)    31 August 2007    Humanitarian Situation in Darfur Deteriorating - Senior UN Official. (UN News)    A United Nations official today warned that the humanitarian situation is worsening in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, with more people being displaced, increased security risks to aid workers and potentially rising malnutrition rates.    “We believe it’s important to keep reminding ourselves that a credible ceasefire and controlling the lawlessness in Darfur are really the two bottom lines that need to be sustained and this is, of course, the intent of the international community,” UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Margareta Wahlström told reporters at the world body’s Headquarters in New York.    In the period from June until 21 August, 55,000 people have been newly displaced, which bring the total of those fleeing their homes since January to a quarter million. Out of a total population in Darfur of 6.4 million, 2.2 million are displaced while four million are dependent on humanitarian assistance, she noted.    “Also, the trend for aid workers is not positive,” she said, with a 150 per cent surge in incidents – including car hijackings, attacks on convoys and other acts of violence – against humanitarian staff. She also reminded reporters that attacks on relief providers are having an impact on Darfurians as well.    Ms. Wahlström expressed concern regarding the recent expulsion by Sudanese officials of the country director of the non-governmental organization (NGO) CARE International. “We obviously think that this sends a very wrong signal to the international community and we would like to hope that the Sudanese authorities will reverse this decision,” she said.    Recent spot surveys indicate that malnutrition is on the rise in the region, where at least 200,000 people have died since 2003 because of fighting between rebel groups, Sudanese Government forces and allied Janjaweed militias.    The results show current malnutrition rates are “well over 17 per cent” in some areas, Ms. Wahlström said.    “With the huge effort of the international humanitarian community from 2004, the situation stabilized from a health and nutritional perspective, so this is the first time we see the potential of a deterioration for which we are very worried and we put this in the context of the very unstable situation in the area,” she said.    Ms. Wahlström voiced hope that the deployment of the hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) from the start of next year will have a positive impact and contribute to improving the humanitarian situation.
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