Darfur update Saturday Aug 21,2004

UN representatives in Sudan and Sudan Foreign Minister Ismail tug back and forth on Dafur. Meanwhile humanitarian groups continue to scale up their contributions.

There is some hopeful humanitarian news on the ground, if true. [note: POtP would like to hear from those with direct information, so we can assess these sorts of stories. Some expert observers have a different view from the one quoted here. Thanks.] The most hopeful report is based comments by Mike McDonagh, who manages the Darfur relief effort for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Khartoum, in a widely reprinted report by Laurie Goering of the Chicago Tribune.

Many of the 1.25 million people driven from their homes in conflict-torn western Sudan still lack decent shelter, and only about a third have reliable access to clean water, according to a U.N. report released Thursday. But as food aid arrives, malnutrition is dropping back toward levels before the conflict in Darfur, and access to health care for many families is better than it was before attacks by government-backed militias began, U.N. officials said...

Since a cease-fire agreement in April paved the way for greater access to Darfur by international assistance groups, the number of international aid workers in the region has risen from 37 to 470, with a corresponding rise in Sudanese workers for the groups. As a result, aid agencies now are reaching all of the large encampments of displaced families and many of the small camps, McDonagh said.

About 60 percent of families who lost their homes now have at least plastic sheeting for shelter during the current rainy season, officials said. Most of the displaced are receiving food, feared epidemics of diseases such as cholera have been averted, and hepatitis and diarrhea outbreaks have been contained...

The increase in aid workers has had an added benefit in helping to curb violence by government-backed militias...

Since assistance groups began pouring into Darfur about three months ago, rape and murder have declined sharply, in part because the attackers are deterred by the presence of aid workers, McDonagh said. A formal force of 300 Rwandan cease-fire monitors also arrived in Darfur last week, and the African Union is hoping to send a larger force of 3,000 soldiers to protect civilians if it can win permission from the central government.

In recent months medical workers in the Darfur camps had seen " fewer war wounds in new arrivals, raising hopes that violence had diminished, McDonagh said.

The world press is full today of the news that Sudan has signed an agreement with the UN to repatriate refugees voluntarily--rather than forcing them back into unsafe villages --as has been charged by relief organizations.

The government says it signed an agreement Saturday with the monitoring group, International Organization for Migration, to ensure internally displaced people only return home voluntarily.

This agreement is a superficial step unless it truly (1) enables the international community more ability to protect the rights of refugees in the field, and (2) is combined with broader attention to security issues across Darfur--where many believe the Sudanese government is continuing its counter-insurgency and ethnic cleansing operations. We will see.

The UN points out that Darfur-wide security from assault by troops and militias remains a major root issue. The current agreement only says that refugees will not be forced to leave camps and return into the hands of attackers. Moreover, the Sudanese government reportedly continues to allow and participate in attacks outside of the few "safe areas" that have been designated immediately around the refugee camps.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Manuel Aranda da Silva, said he was encouraged by Sudan's actions to improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur, but said the main obstacle to reaching all those in need was capacity and funding.

"I am very encouraged by the fact that the capabilities on the ground are increasing," he told reporters, adding there was still a long way to go..

Da Silva said 12 safe areas to be established by the government should not be at the expense of security in other areas of Darfur.

Ismail said Sudan had already begun to deploy police to the safe areas and redeploy armed forces around them to prevent militia attacks on refugees...

Rights groups say there is a systematic campaign of rape in Darfur by armed forces and militias, which Sudan denies. U.N. official Jean-Marie Fakhouri told Reuters on Friday refugees had told him they had been raped as recently as a few days ago.