Sudan: tragedy in Darfur.

Since March 2003, the Darfur region in Sudan--the largest country in Africa--had seen clashes between Sudanese Government forces and rebel militias from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and was also the site of vicious and deadly attacks against civilians by Arab militias linked with the Government. By September 2003, 65,000 Sudanese were fleeing to neighbouring Chad, according to the United Nations, while more than 500,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Darfur needed urgent humanitarian aid. The United Nations appealed for an initial $23 million, even as peace overtures between the Government and rebel forces fell through due to suspicion and accusations.

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Sudan has been under a civil war for more than two decades, when Darfur became the battleground for rebellion. Darfur--which in Arabic means home of the Fur people, one of the main ethnic groups in the region--has some 6 million people of African and Muslim Arab descent. The rebel groups accused the Arabdominated Government of discrimination against the ethnic Africans, who are also Muslims. When fighting erupted, Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed (Arabic for a man with a horse and a gun), started attacking and killing the black African population, while the Sudanese Government began a policy of restricting humanitarian workers from accessing the affected population.

"Denials of access are the greatest impediments to humanitarian efforts in the area", said Tom Eric Vraalsen, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, when he visited the area in December 2003. Echoing him, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said: "The humanitarian situation in Darfur has quickly become one of the worst in the world. Access to people in need is blocked by the parties in conflict and as the need for aid grows, stocks of relief materials are dwindling."

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It was not until early 2004 that Sudanese President Omer Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir promised to provide access to aid workers, but by then more than 750,000 Sudanese were thought to be internally displaced and at least 110,000 others had fled across the border to Chad.

Mr. Egeland said the United Nations and non-governmental organization (NGO) staff had received almost daily credible reports about atrocities, including murders, rapes and looting, and the forced depopulation of entire areas. The reports from Darfur indicated that the Janjaweed militias were mainly responsible for the atrocities, whose victims were mostly members of Fur, Zaghawas and Massalit ethnic communities. On 8 April 2004, the Sudanese Government, the SLA and JEM signed a humanitarian ceasefire accord in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed hope for the accord, saying that he "trusts this agreement will result in an immediate cessation of hostilities and an end to attacks against civilians, as well as full humanitarian access to all people in need of assistance and protection".

However, UN reports of violence and human rights abuses continued. The UN Security Council in a presidential statement in May called on the Sudanese Government to neutralize and disarm the Janjaweed. By then, as a result of the crisis, the number of IDPs had risen to some 2 million.

At a high-level donor meeting in Geneva in June 2004, United Nations agencies called for $236 million to assist the people in Darfur and the refugees in Chad. The World Food Programme assisted some 600,000 people in May; the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance and the Joint Logistics Center provided shelter materials and blankets to reach 90 per cent of the displaced population; about 350,000 needy people had been given access to clean water by UN agencies and partnering NGOs; the United Nations Children's Fund had begun its campaign in June to vaccinate 2 million children against measles and some 100,000 against polio; and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees relocated nearly 106,000 refugees to safer camps in Chad.

On his visit to Sudan and Chad in June, the Secretary-General said that none of the refugees or IDPs should be forced or encouraged to go back to their home villages until it was safe to return. "Security is paramount for all of them and of course that would have to be assured before they go back", he said. Also in June, Mr. Annan appointed Jan Pronk as his Special Representative for Sudan.

On 30 July, the Security Council adopted resolution 1556 (2004), demanding that the Sudanese Government fulfil its commitments to disarm the Janjaweed militias and apprehend and bring them and their associates, who had carried out international humanitarian law violations, to justice. It also requested the Secretary-General to report on progress in thirty days and monthly thereafter. In his 30 August report, Mr. Annan said that "there were no indications at the beginning of August that the Government had taken any measures to 'immediately start to disarm the Janjaweed and other armed outlaw groups'".

The crisis in the Darfur region, by September 2004, has left more than 200 persons dying every day as a result of crowded, unhygienic conditions, together with brutal and violent attacks in the camps, according to the World Health Organization.

On 18 September, the Security Council passed resolution 1564 (2004), increasing pressure on the Government of Sudan to protect the civilian population of Darfur. It also requested that the Secretary-General establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and to determine whether or not acts of genocide had occurred in Darfur and identify the perpetrators.

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