The Sudanese government has neither disarmed militias nor stopped attacks against civilians, as required by the Security Council's 30 July resolution, United Nations' special envoy Jan Pronk said this week.
Reporting after a 30 day deadline had expired, he said no definite steps had been taken to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders responsible for attacks against civilians and that violations of human rights were continuing “in a climate of impunity.”
A United Nations' report, published this week, warned that people were still being displaced. It said, “Attacks on villages south of Zam Zam have resulted in a population movement of around 3,000 to 4,000 persons . . . There has been a sharp upturn in the number of attacks throughout the southern part of North Darfur.”
The World Health Organization cautioned, “The possibility of outbreaks of communicable diseases is particularly elevated due to limited amounts of potable water, low standards of environmental hygiene, declining nutritional status, and low vaccination coverage.”
The organisation is concerned about 12 current problems—acute watery diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, malaria, measles, meningitis, acute jaundice syndrome, acute flaccid paralysis, bloody diarrhoea, neonatal tetanus, fever of unknown origin, severe malnutrition, and injuries.
As diplomats debate sanctions, Physicians for Human Rights is demanding robust action: “The government of Sudan has failed on virtually every count to comply with a Security Council resolution demanding it disarm its militias and assure humanitarian access.”
The medical pressure group's executive director, Leonard S Rubenstein, complained, “The international community has had many months in which to confront the government of Sudan and save its victims from what appears to be an intent to systematically effect group annihilation. The Security Council has dithered while wholesale destruction of communities along ethnic lines, deliberate violence against civilians, and disease and starvation caused by forced displacement unfold again in Africa.”
After a spate of abductions of relief workers in late August, a new accord to allow unrestricted humanitarian access was agreed at last week's African Union sponsored peace talks in Nigeria but immediately broke down when it appeared conditional on the rebels' disarmament.
Sudan's government brought in the controversial Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Yussef Al-Qaradawi, as a potential mediator, although his intervention is unlikely to allay humanitarian concerns. He told Sudanese television that the crisis was an international conspiracy against Islam and that most non-governmental organisations were only in Darfur to convert people to Christianity, claiming that of 53 international agencies in Darfur, only four had Islamic affiliations.
As weather continues to hamper access, advocacy group Sudan Focal Point Africa laments the agencies' lack of preparedness: “The ritual exclamations of surprise at the logistical challenges facing both the aid agencies and the ceasefire monitors have begun again. The only real surprise is that the international community has once again allowed Khartoum to procrastinate until the rainy season is upon us.”