Four stories from today that update yesterday's UN News Service preview item:
By Reuters' Opheera McDoom (also here)...
A decline in security and bureaucratic obstacles are hindering the world's largest aid operation in Sudan's Darfur region, the U.N. humanitarian chief said on Friday.
Darfuris who tried to answer [Sir] John Holmes's questions were intimidated by Sudanese officials as he toured the El-Neem camp, which houses some 50,000 Darfuris driven from their villages by tribal clashes and fighting between army and rebels.
It was Holmes's second visit to Darfur, where U.N. experts estimate that 200,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting, and 2.2 million have been displaced from their homes.
"I think [that] the security situation is probably worse now than it was eight months ago," Holmes said. "Carjackings at gunpoint -- this is almost a daily occurrence."
He also said [that] aid workers continued to face problems gaining exit visas and travel permits.
The population of the el-Neem camp has exploded from 15,000 a year ago, to 50,000, as fighting has emptied nearby villages.
Heavily armed police crammed into trucks escorted Holmes to the camp, sending the African Union troops who were due to protect him back to their base.
Holmes also brought his own security detail, who carried rifles, hand-guns, and knives, clearly making him uncomfortable.
The usual welcoming crowds were noticeably absent, and as Holmes walked through the camp, Sudanese security men wearing dark glasses loomed intimidatingly over the shoulder of anyone he spoke to, preventing any private dialogue.
Nafisa Hassan, 35, from the non-Arab Fur tribe, said [that] she and her nine children had walked for eight hours to reach el-Neem almost a year ago, after their village was burned down.
But before she could answer a question about who attacked them, government officials ordered her to go home.
Al-Nazir Mohamed Abdallah, from the non-Arab Tunjur tribe, who arrived in el-Neem in May, [decided] to brave the intimidation.
"It was the Janjaweed, they attacked us," he said, before the official stopped the interview.
MURDER AND ARSON
The Darfur conflict erupted in 2003, when mostly non-Arab tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated Khartoum government of neglect.
The government retaliated by arming mainly Arab militias, known locally as Janjaweed, but says [that] it is not responsible for their campaign of murder, rape, arson, and plunder.
The situation has become progressively more chaotic as some militias have cut ties with Khartoum and [as] the rebels have split into factions.
Magboula Hussein Mustafa, 25, was one of the first people to flee to el-Neem, after her village was burnt in 2004.
She said [that] many different tribes had lived together in peace in her area, but [that] the conflict had changed all that.
"We have lost our men, our children, our villages, and our homes in this war," she said. "We were attacked[;] they burnt our homes and took all our things."
Khartoum is anxious for the refugees to return home, and Holmes heard that many people wanted to go, but needed guarantees of security and water first.
"They are clearly fed up of living in camps, and who can blame them?" he said. "There's no employment ... life isn't safe -- particularly for the women.
"It's pretty tough, and they want to go home, and I'm sure [that] they will go home, as soon as the conditions allow -- but it's pretty clear that the conditions don't allow for that."
From AFP...
UN humanitarian chief [Sir] John Holmes toured a dusty and depressed Darfur camp on Friday, warning that security was deteriorating and calling on the Sudan government to end restrictions.
Surrounded by security men and aides, with reporters scurrying behind, Holmes walked past straw huts and donkeys in El-Neem camp, which has swollen from 15,000 people displaced by the conflict, to nearly 50,000, in one year.
He spoke with a mother and a young man in the sand outside their huts, and was briefed by camp representatives on the difficulties [that] they face and how insecurity for women, in particular, was causing incidents of rape.
"I think [that] the security situation is probably worse now than it was eight months ago. There's been more fighting, more instability, and more displacement of people," Holmes told reporters after visiting the camp in South Darfur.
"The humanitarian situation has deteriorated somewhat, not dramatically perhaps, but in terms of access, in terms of security, things are more difficult. So it's a worrying time," Holmes said in the town of Ed-Daien.
"There are still very big problems in most of Darfur. There may be parts where it's a bit quieter, but for the moment, we seem to have seen rather more problems in the last few months than there had been before," he said.
During Holmes's visit, his security detail asked the African Union contingent helping to protect his convoy to leave, after an argument between one of its officers and a Sudanese-government policeman, security officials said.
The United Nations has voiced increased frustration with Khartoum over key obstacles delaying the deployment of the biggest UN peacekeeping mission in history, and Holmes added bureaucratic problems for aid workers to the list.
He said [that] the United Nations would continue to press the government to provide humanitarian workers with as much access and security as possible.
"One of the big problems in this area is insecurity for the NGOs and the agencies, particularly car hijacking at gunpoint. This is almost a daily occurrence, and has a huge effect on the ability of the agencies to operate.
"We would like to resolve these problems through the forums of dialogue [that] we set up, rather than just hear about them or be faced with arbitrary decisions that are very difficult to reverse," he said.
Local Sudanese said what they wanted from the United Nations, which has raised huge expectations of hope among the impoverished victims of war in Darfur, was answers to their problems.
"We lost our husbands, our children, everything," a woman calling herself Mabulassain told Holmes via a translator as the convoy engines kept humming outside, so [that] the drivers could sit in the air conditioning.
"Our freedom is very restricted. If we go around to collect firewood, we face rape or many difficulties," she added.
Holmes expressed the hope that the UN peacekeeping mission due to relieve poorly equipped AU soldiers on January 1 would help, but also said [that] it could not work miracles.
"It will not solve all the problems, just like that. It will not produce miracles, but we hope [that] it will be helpful," he said.
"The United Nations will do its best, without wanting to promise miraculous solutions."
Holmes, head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), arrived in Khartoum on Wednesday, as part of a tour of East Africa.
From the AP...
The U.N. aid chief voiced concern [on] Friday at the worsening situation in Darfur, as he inspected a fast-growing refugee camp in the region and promised to urge the Sudanese government to cease "arbitrary decisions" blocking humanitarian efforts.
[Sir] John Holmes, the U.N. envoy, said [that] he hoped [that] an upcoming U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force would help make the region safer.
October has been one of the worst months for aid workers in Darfur since the crisis began, with seven humanitarian workers killed by various warring factions and near-daily hijackings. Also, peace talks between rebels and the government have stalled, threatening more chaos.
The U.N. says [that] 270,000 more people fled from their homes so far this year because of the violence, adding to Darfur's estimated [2.5] million refugees, largely ethnic-African villagers.
"In terms of access, in terms of security, things are more difficult: it's a worrying time," Holmes told reporters after visiting the el-Neem refugee camp in South Darfur.
Delegates from the 50,000-strong camp, which tripled in size this year, told Holmes [that] they faced daily insecurity, even though the camp lies in a relatively stable area.
"We've been suffering every day," said Magbuba Hussein Mustafa, a woman representative from the camp. "We've lost everything: our husbands, our children, our villages," she added.
Refugees desperately hope [that] the 26,000-strong U.N.-AU force due in January to replace the current, overwhelmed AU mission will finally help end the violence.
Holmes, who was here eight months ago, told The Associated Press that Darfur was U.N.'s "biggest humanitarian operation in the world," and that he intends to visit regularly.
Darfur's conflict erupted in 2003, when ethnic African rebels took arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of decades of discrimination. The government is accused of retaliating with militias of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, and is blamed for the bulk of the atrocities in a conflict that has killed over 200,000 people.
Though widespread killings have ceased, ethnic-African refugees and aid groups that help them continue to face near-daily harassment.
Holmes said [that] he would press senior Sudanese officials to improve humanitarian access to Darfur and [to] better implement a cooperation agreement [that] the U.N. signed with Khartoum earlier this year.
Holmes condemned the expulsions of several U.N. and aid group members in recent months, saying [that] he wanted the government to discuss such cases in advance, so [that] the U.N. wouldn't "be faced with arbitrary decisions that are very difficult to reverse."
But tensions against the AU force run high across the troubled region — something that was also evident during Holmes' visit to el-Neem, a relatively affluent, government-controlled camp in a verdant area of Darfur.
Holmes came with an entourage of government-provided troops, U.N. escorts and also AU peacekeepers. As he went in with four pickup trucks jammed with heavily armed police and paramilitaries — escorts from the Sudanese government — he apologized to the refugees for bringing "so many soldiers and police."
Some of the government-provided escorts were from a militia known as the Central Reserve Police, which critics say has incorporated many janjaweed. One of the force's chiefs in southern Darfur, Ali Kushayb, has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Seeing Holmes' AU escorts inside the camp, local Sudanese police chief Col. Muhatazem Ibrahim ordered them to leave.
"This is not your country[;] leave now!" Ibrahim yelled at an AU officer with Holmes.
Although this counters agreements with the United Nations, Holmes' U.N. escorts eventually asked the AU peacekeepers to leave, [in order] to avoid more incidents.
From the UN News Service...
Darfur’s hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) will only return to their home villages and areas once security conditions improve and basic services are operating, the top United Nations humanitarian official said today [Friday] after visiting one of the war-wracked Sudanese region’s biggest IDP camps.
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator [Sir] John Holmes met with IDP representatives at South Darfur state’s Ed Daein camp, which is currently home to an estimated 50,000 people.
“Clearly, after living in camps – in some cases for over three years – they are frustrated,” he said. “While they expressed a strong desire to return to their home areas, all the people [that] I spoke with were unequivocal that they would only be able to do so when security conditions were right, and [when] services were in place.”
In total, at least 2.2 million Darfurians are either internally displaced or live as refugees in neighbouring countries because of fighting between rebels, Government forces, allied militia, and tribal groups since 2003. More than 200,000 others have been killed.
Mr. Holmes also met today with aid workers [in order] to discuss the continuing challenges [that] they face in trying to bring relief in Darfur, where car hijackings, assaults, and harassment have become increasingly common.
“Many organizations also expressed their frustration at bureaucratic impediments which continue to hamper an effective and efficient response,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a media statement.
A combination of poor rainfall, infestations, and birds mean [that] there could be a poor harvest this season, and UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are warning about a serious food gap emerging, possibly as early as January [of] next year.
While in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, the Emergency Relief Coordinator held a short meeting with the Wali, or provincial governor, [in order] to discuss mutual concerns about the situation.
Tomorrow [Saturday] Mr. Holmes is scheduled to travel to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the home of the planned hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID), for talks with UN staff, partner organizations and local authorities.
