- According to the latest update from the UN, more than 2 million people are now affected by the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan. As a growing number of voices demand the UN to intervene in Darfur, the Khartoum government claims that the embattled region now is stable.
The latest UN report on Darfur estimates that more than 2 million people are being affected by the conflict, compared to 1.1 million reported in an April report. Approximately 432,000 internally displaced persons are in West Darfur, 321,000 in North Darfur and 233,000 in South Darfur. The rest are refugees who fled to neighbouring Chad, the UN reported this night.
The Darfur region was been the location of the world's most violent conflict this year as the government-allied Arab Janjaweed militia has been carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the black African population. The Janjaweed has repeatedly been accused of preparing genocide in Darfur.
As the humanitarian crisis deepens in Darfur, the influential think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG) on Sunday urged the UN to consider military intervention to prevent more killings in Darfur. Also the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) called on its government to take strong measures to stop the ethnic cleansing in Darfur.
The ICG demanded the UN Security Council should pass a resolution condemning Khartoum for its "indiscriminate targeting of civilians." The UN so far had been too soft on the Sudanese government, various international organisations claim. "Khartoum may be betting that the world is too preoccupied with Iraq to care what happens in Darfur," said ICG leader Gareth Evans.
The Khartoum government meanwhile claims the situation in Darfur is calm and stable. Sudan's Minister of the Interior, Ahmed Mohamed Haroun, yesterday said that the security alert level for Darfur had been scaled down and that the situation in the region was "stable".
The Darfur rebels no longer was able to strike against Sudanese authorities and had resorted to "the looting of the possessions and wealth of civilians and highway banditry," claimed Mr Haroun, speaking to police officers in Khartoum.
In Darfur, meanwhile, the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) yesterday reported of a continued and growing humanitarian crisis. As UN agencies and relief organisations were trying to assist the growing number of Darfur war victims, Sudanese authorities and their allied Janjaweed militia were obstructing this work.
In South Darfur, displaced persons who accepted food aid were subject to Janjaweed militia predatory attacks, OCHA said in a statement. Aid agencies had agreed that "any distribution of shelter and [non-food items] will commit them to close monitoring of deliveries to minimise the risk to recipients."
Meanwhile, a vehicle of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) "came under attack on the Zalengei-Mornei road last Wednesday. A truck carrying WFP food, clearly marked with WFP signs, travelled in proximity of two government trucks when it came under Janjaweed attack," the UN reports.
- Two bags of WFP grain were looted, [and] the WFP-hired truck driver was robbed, beaten and subsequently hospitalised, the UN statement added. "The government drivers were also beaten [and] robbed, and one of the drivers was shot and injured."
OCHA has also complained that a UN humanitarian worker was deported from the South Darfur area. "An OCHA Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer in Nyala was deported from South Darfur. This was unacceptable treatment for UN staff," the UN agency says, without naming the deportee.
The Khartoum government is further reported to enhance its pressure on the displaced Darfur population. Although the displaced had repeatedly said they would return home to West Darfur only when the Janjaweed militia are disarmed and when there is security, the government was insisting on immediate return, the UN said in a report.
Traditional leaders were being pressured or persuaded to cooperate, or else they were replaced, OCHA said. The authorities in West Darfur's capital, Geneina, replaced "the vocal community committee" of traditional leaders in Sisi camp with more conciliatory representatives, the UN agency said.
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