United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has pledged the UN's continuing support for the talks aimed at ending conflict in southern Sudan. He said the peace process had reached a critical phase with the signing on 26 May of three key protocols on power-sharing and the contested areas. 
In a message read during the formal launch of the final phase of talks between the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM/A) in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on 5 June, Annan said the UN would send an advance team to support negotiations between the two parties. 
The Sudanese government and the SPLM/A have signed six protocols, which, together with two annexes, are to make up a comprehensive peace agreement. Technical committees are expected - within two months - to prepare annexes governing the implementation of the protocols and comprehensive ceasefire arrangements and guarantees. 
Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in Nairobi, told IRIN on Monday that work of the final phase would start on 22 June. 
Dirdeiry said the two protocols - on a comprehensive ceasefire and on modalities of implementation - together with the other protocols already signed "will together form a comprehensive peace agreement, the signing of which would signal the pre-interim period" lasting six months, and lead to an interim period of six years. At the end of the period, "a referendum on whether to remain in a united Sudan" or separate will be held in the south, Dirdeiry told IRIN. 
Efforts by IRIN to obtain comment from the SPLM/A were unsuccessful. 
Annan also called for a "concerted international response" to the crisis in the western Sudanese state of Darfur, where fighting between government forces and allied militias on the one hand and two armed rebel groups on the other hand has displaced up to two million people. 
"The crisis in Darfur continues to cause appalling suffering that demands a concerted international response," said Annan in his message.

A declaration to launch the ‘final phase’ of the peace negotiations on Sudan was signed today in Nairobi (Kenya) by Sudan Vice-President Ali Osman Taha and the leader of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army). As reported by international press sources, the document was undersigned in the Kenyan presidential offices, in the presence of the Head of State Mwai Kibaki. The declaration confirms the pledges already indicated in the protocols signed by the sides last May 26 on the last issues to be resolved for a ‘global and inclusive’ accord that ends a war underway for 21 years between Khartoum and rebellion of the South. The ‘final phase’ opened today foresees the examination of the “application modalities of the accords, the monitoring mechanisms of the cease-fire and other necessary measures to consolidate and guarantee security of peace”, as explained by the Kenyan Foreign Minister on the eve of this meeting. From July 2002 the Islamic government of the North and the separatists of the SPLA (that does not however represent the complex ethnic-political mosaic of South Sudan, but only the main armed group) reached an agreement that foresees the right to a referendum on the self-determination of the southern territories after a six-year transition period and the non-application of Sharìa (Islamic law) in the South; in the past months an accord was also reached on the equal sharing of oil proceeds from the rich deposits of the nation and on the administration of the armed forces during the transition period, which should be accompanied by a large-scale United Nations peace mission, currently being studied. The complex conflict in Sudan – often represented only as a religious contrast between the North (Arab and Muslim) and the South (inhabited by prevalently Christian and Animist black populations) – since 1983 resulted in an unconfirmed number of victims claimed by famine and disease; an over all death toll of 2-million, while at least double of displaced and refugees.

The Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) have taken major steps towards ending their 21-year old conflict. After two years of negotiations, they have signed six key protocols governing a referendum on southern Sudan after a six-year interim period; security, wealth-sharing and power-sharing arrangements during the interim; the status of Abyei; and the status of southern Blue Nile and the Nuba mountains. 
On 5 June, they will resume negotiations to thrash out implementation details, as well as a formula for a comprehensive ceasefire and international monitoring and peace-keeping. Two annexes plus the six protocols will then make up the comprehensive peace agreement. 
Last week's breakthrough that officially ended the bilateral "political" negotiations was welcomed by all concerned and widely hailed as the beginning of the end of Africa's longest-running civil war. But, Sudan watchers say, a number of potential spoilers remain, not least the numerous armed militias in the south. 
According to the South Africa-based think-tank, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), an umbrella of southern militias known as the South Sudan Defence Force (SSDF) poses a serious threat to harmony in the whole of Sudan. 
"Armed, angry at being left out of the peace process, and fearful that decisions are being made that will affect its interests, the SSDF poses a major challenge to both the peace process and to the success of the proposed six-year transitional period," says a report entitled "The South Sudan Defence Force: A Challenge to the Sudan Peace Process". 
To view the report go to <a href="http://www.iss.co.za/AF/profiles/Sudan/sudan1.html" target="_blank">www.iss.co.za</a> 
The SSDF demands attention for a number of key reasons, says ISS. Although its membership is constantly in a state of flux, it has several thousand members who could mobilise thousands more, particularly among the Nuer community, who constitute southern Sudan's second largest ethnic group after the Dinka. 
Its precise areas of control are debatable, but certainly cover much of Upper Nile, parts of northern and western Bahr al-Ghazal, Bahr al-Jabal and much of Eastern Equatoria. "What can be said with confidence is that claims made by the SPLM/A and its supporters to hold sway over 80 percent of southern Sudan and to surround all of the government towns in the region are clearly false," says the report. 
Thirdly, the SSDF provides strategic security around the oilfields of western and eastern Upper Nile and many of the garrison towns in the south. Lastly, it contains a substantial number of Nuer, who had a series of clashes with the Dinka-dominated SPLM/A in the 1990s that led to tens of thousands of deaths. 
"Given the SSDF's size, strategic location, and propensity to fight and resist whatever the odds, a viable and sustainable peace process that does not have its support (and that of a large majority of the Nuer in particular) is hard to imagine," says ISS. 
The SSDF, which comprises about 25 militias, was formed in 1997 following the signing of the Khartoum Peace Agreement between the Sudanese government, Riek Machar's South Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM) and five other southern factions. The agreement committed the government to a vote on self-determination for the south after an interim period of unspecified length, while the militias agreed to a tactical alliance with Khartoum. 
The biggest concentration of SSDF members are based in oil-rich Western Upper Nile where they have been used to depopulate and gain control of the oilfields. They are usually based close to garrison towns - from which they are supported logistically and supplied with arms - recruited locally, and are personality- and ethnicity-driven.  Despite their significance, however, they have been almost entirely left out of the peace process. 
According to the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mediators it would have been impossible to negotiate with all of Sudan's different armed goups at the same time. "There was not a single militia included because they are either represented by the government or the SPLM/A. So they were indirectly included," Lazarus Sumbeiywo, IGAD's chief mediator told IRIN. 
Samson Kwaje, the SPLM/A spokesman told IRIN that all of the militias had either been absorbed into the SPLM/A or the Sudanese army. "There is no threat, they have been absolved into the army. So actually they don't exist now." 
In January 2004, Khartoum reportedly appointed some 60 SSDF commanders to senior ranks. 
But ISS says that Khartoum, the SPLM/A and the international community - including the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development mediators - have all wrongly assumed that the SPLM/A and the government are in control of Sudan's destiny. 
"The first shock to the holders of this myopic view was the rapidly escalating war and humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The second shock could well be a demonstration of the inability of either the government or the SPLM/A to control and pacify the disparate elements of the SSDF." 

Peace negotiations 

The SSDF did manage to send a delegation of 17 officials to Kenya for discussions between the government and the SPLM/A on security arrangements during the interim period, and appointed an SSDF member, Martin Kenyi of the Equatoria Defence Forces (EDF), to the government negotiating team. 
But the protocol on security arrangements reached on 25 September 2003 repeatedly acknowledges only two military players in Sudan: the government forces and the SPLM/A. Moreover, it makes clear that "no armed group allied to either party shall be allowed to operate outside the two forces". Instead, the unacknowledged groups in the south will be absorbed into the army, prisons, police and wildlife services, it says. 
By contrast, the Khartoum agreement signed in 1997 identified the SSDF as the only southern agent charged with providing security in southern Sudan. 
Nevertheless, the protocol on security arrangements was originally welcomed by SSDF members, who accepted that the SPLM/A was negotiating in their best interests, according to ISS. But since then much of the goodwill has dissipated, while violence in southern Sudan is on the increase. 
"Positions have hardened, and clearly there are sections of the government, SPLM/A and the SSDF now actively opposed to reconciliation between the SPLM/A and the SSDF," says the report. 
The protocol on wealth-sharing signed in January 2004 exacerbated the differences even further by agreeing to provide only 2 percent of the oil wealth to oil-producing states, as against 40 percent allotted by the Khartoum agreement. The response of many Nuer was one of "extreme anger", said ISS. 

Violations of ceasefire 

Since the beginning of 2004, and despite an ongoing cessation of hostilities between the government and the SPLM/A - which governs allies of both the government and the SPLM/A - a number of conflicts in the south have intensified. 
From January to March 2004 areas in the oil-rich western Upper Nile region were torn apart by militia in-fighting, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, looting, abductions and the displacement of thousands of people, as well as the destruction of schools and hospitals. 
In the Shilluk Kingdom of northern Upper Nile, an undetermined number have been killed this year, and tens of thousands displaced by forces formerly loyal to Lam Akol - who defected to the SPLM/A in October 2003 - which were allegedly accompanied by government forces. See: <a
href="http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40986&SelectRegion=East_ Africa&SelectCountry=SUDAN">Displaced in Shilluk Kingdom in urgent need of aid, says rebel leader</a> 
"The government supported one faction and brought in other groups from the SSDF, who were in turn divided, and for the first time in many months government forces became engaged in the conflict," ISS reported.  Lam Akol warned last month that the attacks had stopped for now, but that fighting could flare up again, threatening the entire Sudanese peace process. "It is not a tribal conflict. It is a conflict between the government and the SPLM/A," he repeated. 
Key to the clashes in Shilluk was the vacume created by Akol's defection and a struggle to take over his area of control - which is in southern Sudan - with both the SPLM/A and government-allied forces laying claim to it. 

New and old allegiances

For the last two years, the SPLM/A has been striving to realign itself with the southern militias - many of which originally belonged to the rebel movement. A number of successes have been notable including defections to it by Riek Machar (Sudan People's Democratic Forces), Lam Akol (SPLM/A-United), Tito Biel and James Leah (leaders of SSIM) and Dr Theophilus Lotti (EDF). 
But territorial control and rivalry, ethnic tensions, competition for the spoils of war, and distrust of the Dinka-dominated SPLM/A mean that many forces, or individuals within forces, are unwilling to realign themselves. The result is a large number of armed men who control large areas of land and have shifting and opportunistic allegiances to different factions and leaders, say regional analysts. 
Furthermore,  the SPLM/A is not supporting a "genuine reconciliation", according to ISS. During a high-level SPLM/A visit to Khartoum in December 2003, it did not meet either its major military foe, the SSDF, or government-backed southern politicians belonging to the Southern States Coordination Council. 
A regional analyst told IRIN that those in the SSDF with a political agenda would most likely realign themselves with the SPLM/A in the near future, in a pragmatic attempt to carve out a niche for themselves in the new Sudan. 
Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in Nairobi, told IRIN the militias did not pose a threat to the peace process if commitments made to them were followed through during the interim period. 
But Sudan watchers say "the warlords" may well continue to cause trouble. 
Given Sudan's recent history, many observers agree that southern Sudanese have as much to fear from south-south strife as from north-south strife. 
"If the peace process does not pay more attention to these local factors, it could easily break apart even if a national-level agreement were to be signed under the auspices of IGAD," according to ICG. 
For further information on Sudan's militias go to ICG report entitled "Sudan's Oilfields Burn Again: Brinkmanship Endangers The Peace Process" available at 
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id=1807&l=1
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

A high-level donor meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday appealed for at least US $236 million to help an estimated 2.2 million victims of war and "forced ethnic displacement" in western Sudan's Darfur region, the United Nations reported. In total, about $126 million has been pledged for 2004, leaving a deficit of $110 million, it added. 
Representatives of 36 states  and institutions, including donor governments, Sudan, the Arab League, the African Union (AU) and NGOs, were present at the conference. 
Addressing journalists midway through the meeting, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said this was the most important conference in recent history as the world's biggest humanitarian crisis was unfolding in Darfur. 
Even with humanitarian aid, many lives would be lost, he said. "We are late in responding and the Janjawid [militia] attacks [are] so harsh that even under the best of circumstances [in terms of donor response] it will still be a humanitarian crisis." 
A joint statement issued by the UN, US and EU added that hundreds of thousands of lives were at risk in Darfur "unless immediate protection and relief are provided". 
Donors aim to feed, shelter up to a million IDPs in three months 
Egeland said the conference participants had agreed to try to meet a series of key targets in Darfur over the next 90 days. These included: 
- feeding up to one million people across the region; - drilling new boreholes, and providing water pumps and tanks for camps for displaced people and host communities; - providing basic drugs and health care for 90 percent of the displaced; - providing basic materials to help displaced people and refugees construct temporary shelters; - providing seeds and tools to 78,000 families; and - deploying human rights and protection staff to the area. 
Unanimous concern was expressed at the conference about the continuing attacks being perpetrated by the government-allied Janjawid militia. 
Despite a ceasefire agreement signed by Khartoum and Darfur's two rebel groups in the Chadian capital, N'djamena, on 8 April, the Janjawid were still very active, with reports from the region indicating an increase in attacks and human rights violations, said Egeland. 
He added that the rainy season would render roads impassable within just a few weeks, making the delivery of aid "a race against the clock". 
New restrictions to access deplored 
Andrew Natsios, the head of the US Agency for International Development, said too few NGOs were operating in Darfur to deliver sufficient quantities of aid. Coupled with this was the fact that whereas the Sudanese government had removed permit requirements for NGOs, it had imposed new restrictions on vehicles and air transport, thereby effectively limiting the movement of NGOs to and within Darfur. 
James Morris, the executive director of the World Food Programme, commented that the government needed to remove administrative roadblocks like visas, permits and laborious checks on basic necessities such as medical supplies. 
Bertrand Ramcharan, the UN acting high commissioner for human rights, raised the issue of protection. "Let me say it again: More than one million people are utterly vulnerable, living in a state of fear and without any means of protection... We know all this, we have no excuse for not knowing it: now is the time not to assess but to act," Ramcharan said in a statement. 
He stressed that the humanitarian crisis was the direct consequence of a human rights crisis. "It is not impersonal, unswayable elements that are behind this tragedy: this tragedy is entirely man-made." It was the government's responsibility to resolve the crisis in line with its legal obligations, he added. 
No rights mechanisms protect Darfurians - HCHR 
A key concern was that there were "no human rights or protection mechanisms currently in place" to help Dafurians, he continued. He had requested his office to dispatch six human rights officers as soon as possible to Darfur to provide support to UN counterparts on monitoring ceasefire violations and protecting civilians, he said. The officers would also work closely with the AU mission to be sent to Darfur. 
An "advance team" of 10 AU staff members had been deployed to Khartoum on Wednesday to prepare the logistics for a team of 90 ceasefire monitors, 60 of whom would be soldiers, an AU spokesman, Desmond Orjiako, told IRIN. The rest of the observer mission would go to Darfur as soon as "conditions" were ready, he added. 
Amnesty International noted this week that nearly two months after the 8 April ceasefire, the monitors were not yet in place in Darfur. "It is not clear how effective 90 monitors - 60 military and 30 civilians - will be in an area the size of France where daily killings and rapes are still being reported," Amnesty said in a statement. 
The Sudanese News Agency reported, however, that during meetings held on Wednesday and Thursday between the Sudanese government and the AU mission, the two sides had expressed "their confidence on achievement of a peaceful solution for Darfur". 
Government expresses commitment to ceasefire 
The Sudanese External Relations Ministry also issued a statement this week, affirming "the government's deep resolve" to abide by the N'djamena ceasefire accord, and stating that the government was keen to provide "more security, tranquillity and trust". 
But ceasefire violations are being frequently reported. On 28 May, an Antonov aircraft and two helicopter gunships bombed a crowded market, killing at least 12 people in a village near Al-Fashir, Northern Darfur, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported. "There have also been numerous credible reports of continuing attacks on civilians in displaced camps and settlements under government control," it added. 
On 22 May, Janjawid killed at least 40 villagers and burned five villages, including Tabaldiyah and Abqarjeh, both south of Nyala, Southern Darfur, AI reported. They had reportedly arrived - some in army uniform - on horses and camels. "The government is not addressing the impunity of the Janjawid; it is integrating them into the army," HRW added. 
The government has denied the attacks and accused the Darfur rebels of violating the ceasefire. 

Millions of lives are at risk in the western region of Sudan and urgent help is needed from the international community: this is the appeal launched by the WHO (World Health Organisation) on the eve of today’s meeting of donor countries in Geneva aimed at trying to raise the funds needed to support the aid workers engaged in tackling the crisis caused by the conflict in the region. Sixteen months of fighting have left roughly 30,000 people dead (according to the latest United Nations figures) and generated 130,000 refugees (all in neighbouring Chad) and over one million internally displaced people. “The most dramatic race against time in the world is underway right now in Darfur,” the UN co-ordinator for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, said yesterday. “A significant increase in the number of dead and of disease is inevitable without external assistance,” echoes the statement from WHO. Violence, lack of food, contaminated water, poor sanitation and inadequate medical assistance are fuelling “a dangerous spiral of death” which, according to some estimates, will directly threaten the lives of at least 300,000 people over the next few months. In February 2003 two rebel groups – SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement) and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) – formally took up arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, which they accuse of neglecting the region as it is inhabited mainly buy black people, and of financing the militias of Arab predators (known as Janjaweed), who have caused death and destruction in the area for years. Some sources, including local UN representatives, have claimed hat a “new genocide” in underway in Darfur

The final phase of the Sudanese peace process is expected to be launched in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Saturday by President Mwai Kibaki, according to a press statement issued by the Kenyan foreign ministry. 
It follows the signing on 26 May by the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) of three key protocols on wealth-sharing and the contested areas of Abyei, the Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile, paving the way for a comprehensive peace agreement. 
Six protocols have been signed to date, which, together with two annexes, will make up a comprehensive peace agreement. Technical committees are expected to start work on the annexes governing the implementation of the protocols, plus comprehensive ceasefire arrangements and guarantees, and to finish their work within two months. 
The statement said "the peace process for the Sudan has entered the final crucial phase, which will look into the implementation modalities of the agreements, mechanisms for monitoring [the] ceasefire, and other arrangements necessary to secure and consolidate the peace". 
To build on the momentum so far achieved and to lay a firm foundation "for this meaningful engagement", Sudanese Vice-President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha, the leader of the government delegation, and SPLM/A Chairman John Garang "have decided to reconvene in Naivasha on 3 and 4 June 2004 for the purpose of preparing the formal launch of the final phase in Nairobi", it added.

Just over a week after the government of Sudan said it would allow aid workers into the western region of Darfur within 48 hours, humanitarian access was "fairly smooth," according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Khartoum.
OCHA had managed to deploy seven field staff members since 20 May, several of whom had been waiting for up to two months for a travel permit, said Ramesh Rajasingham, the head of OCHA Sudan. In one or two cases, visas were still being delayed, but these were being followed up, he said, noting that in Southern Darfur it appeared that the message had not filtered down to local authorities by last Saturday. 
At the same time, however, some relief assistance, equipment and vehicles essential to the delivery of aid were still being delayed, said Rajasingham. 
Khartoum recently announced that with effect from 24 May it would issue visas within 48 hours and waive the requirement for travel permits to Darfur, which had been causing huge delays in delivering aid.
Staff already in Darfur still had to give the local humanitarian aid commissioners 24-hour notice when they were traveling outside the three main towns of Nyala, Al-Junaynah and Al-Fashir, but the procedures seemed to be working in general and travel was being undertaken "fairly freely", Rajasingham added.
A more serious impediment to the delivery of aid was the reported "requirement" by Khartoum that agencies only use local NGOs to deliver aid, he told IRIN. 
The new policy had "hampered effective distribution of assistance, including food", the UN reported last week, stating that the existing local NGOs were limited in number and lacked the necessary capacity. 
Rajasingham confirmed that capacity building of local NGOs was a priority but, but added: "This is an emergency and we have to use the best and most reliable capacity on the ground. We have to rely on partners who can deliver rapidly and reliably, whoever they are," he said.
The advocacy group Refugees International (RI) said last week that Khartoum was continuing to place "obstacles" in the way of agencies seeking to respond to the Darfur crisis by requiring relief supplies to be transported on Sudanese trucks and distributed by Sudanese agencies. 
The World Food Programme (WFP) confirmed that it had only been able to deliver three quarters of the food it planned to distribute in May, due to a combination of insecurity, bureaucratic and logistical problems. "We are not reaching as many people as we ought to and we don't have much time left," commented WFP spokeswoman, Laura Melo.
MSF warned last month that the entire population of Darfur, numbering several million, was "teetering on the verge of mass starvation" as a direct result of the conflict.
A further problem was Khartoum's insistence that all medical supplies being shipped into Sudan needed to be tested before they were used, RI added. 
"The only plausible explanation of these regulations is that the government of Sudan, despite its repeated pledges to the contrary, simply does not want a large-scale presence of international agencies in Darfur," said RI.
A 20 May statement from the Sudanese foreign and humanitarian affairs ministries said Khartoum had an "open-ended vision to guarantee and facilitate humanitarian efforts" in Darfur. "In fulfillment of its responsibilities and obligations toward its citizens and to ensure their wellbeing", Khartoum "recognises the crucial need for immediate humanitarian assistance in the region and is determined to alleviate the suffering that has resulted as a by-product of the war". 
But the US Agency for International Development (USAID) reported last week that Khartoum was "interfering" in humanitarian aid efforts. Government officials had questioned relief workers on their reporting of human rights abuses, told agencies not to carry out protection activities, and threatened to expel organisations failing to comply with restrictions, it said. 
In May an OCHA official was expelled and NGOs were accused of supporting the rebellion in Darfur. 
Khartoum also required 72-hour advance notification for passengers travelling on UN flights to Darfur, which was "an impediment to the rapid deployment of emergency staff and equipment," USAID added.
Meanwhile, no UN agencies were delivering aid to rebel-held areas because of a mixture of insecurity and a lack of permission from Khartoum to access the areas, according to OCHA.
USAID said that armed Janjawid militia were continuing to attack civilians in all three states of Darfur and that killings, rapes, beatings, looting and burning of homes were still being reported. In Northern Darfur State, attacks on villages had only decreased because "a significant number" of villages had already been destroyed, while attacks on camps for internally displaced persons were continuing, it said.
On 28 May, the parties to the conflict agreed to the deployment of African Union (AU) ceasefire monitors in Darfur. Desmond Orjiako, an AU spokesman, told IRIN that the first 10 monitors, comprising seven military observers and three support staff, would be deployed on Wednesday. A further 90, including 60 soldiers, would be deployed as soon as conditions were ready and vehicles and accommodation had been organised.
The ceasefire monitors would be based in al-Fashir, northern Darfur, but would travel within the three states, he told IRIN. 
The status of the 45-day renewable ceasefire, which has been broken numerous times, has remained unclear since it expired on 26 May. The UN said it had received no information regarding a renewal or further peace talks.
On Friday, the political director of the Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army, Abu al-Qasim told IRIN the SLA was continuing to respect it, "so as to let the organisations provide aid for people in the region", but that nothing formal had been arranged. 

On Wednesday evening, the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed three key protocols on wealth-sharing and the contested areas of Abyei, the Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile, paving the way for a comprehensive peace agreement. 
Six protocols have been signed to date, which, together with two annexes, will make up a comprehensive peace agreement. Technical committees are expected to start work in three weeks on the annexes governing the implementation of the protocols, plus comprehensive ceasefire arrangements and guarantees, and to finish their work within two months. 
The earlier protocols are: the Machakos protocol governing a referendum on secession for the south after a six-year interim period following the signing of a comprehensive peace deal; a protocol on security arrangements during the interim period; and on wealth-sharing during the interim. 

Key details of the agreements signed this week are outlined below: 

Protocol on power-sharing 

*  There will be a National Government and a separate Government of Southern Sudan. The National Government is to be decentralised with "significant devolution of powers" awarded to each state. *  A bicameral National Legislature will be established consisting of a National Assembly and a Council of States, the latter comprising two representatives from each state. *  The Interim National Constitution will be the supreme law of the land, while the Southern Sudan Constitution and state constitutions will comply with it. *  The National Congress Party will fill 52 percent of seats in the National Assembly; the SPLM will have 28 percent; other northern political forces will have 14 percent; other southern forces 6 percent. *  There will be one president, and two vice-presidents (to be appointed by the president) in Sudan. Umar Hasan al-Bashir will remain president until national elections are held. Dr John Garang will be first vice-president of the National Government and president of the Government of Southern Sudan. *  A population census will be held by the second year of the interim period, and general elections by the end of the third year. *  Khartoum will remain the capital of the Republic of Sudan. Non-Muslims will not be subject to shari'ah law in the capital. *  The rights of non-Muslims are to be protected by a special commission appointed by the President. *  The National Government is to implement an "information campaign" throughout Sudan in all national languages to "popularise" the peace agreement and foster national unity and reconciliation. *  The National Civil Service will award between 20 and 30 percent of jobs, to be confirmed by the census, to southerners. Not less than 20 percent of middle- and upper-level positions will be given to southerners. *  Arabic and English are to be the official working languages of the National Government. *  Sudanese will be given a number of guarantees, including: the right to life, liberty and security of person; the abolition of slavery; the abolition of torture; a fair trial; freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression; freedom of assembly; the right to vote; equality before the law; freedom from discrimination; and women are to be treated equally to men. 

Protocol on the resolution of Abeyi conflict

*  Abyei is defined as the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905. *  The Misariyah and other nomadic peoples will retain their right to graze cattle and move across the territory of Abyei. *  Residents of Abyei (the Ngok and other residents) will be awarded a "special administrative status" during the interim period and will remain citizens of both Western Kordofan in northern Sudan and Bahr al-Ghazal in southern Sudan with representation in the legislatures of both states. *  Abyei will be administered by a local Executive Council, to be elected by its residents, during the interim period. *  Simultaneous with the referendum on secession for southern Sudan after the interim period, residents of Abyei will have a separate referendum to decide whether to remain part of northern or southern Sudan. *  Oil revenue from Abyei will be divided six ways during the interim period: between the National Government (50 percent); the Government of Southern Sudan (42 percent); Bahr al-Ghazal (2 percent); Western Kordofan (2 percent); the Ngok Dinka (2 percent); and the Misariyah (2 percent). *  The National Government will appeal to the donor community to facilitate the return of residents from Abyei, many of whom were displaced by the war. 

Protocol on the resolution of conflict Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state

*  Residents of the two areas will have a "popular consultation" on the comprehensive peace agreement to be signed by the SPLM/A and the government. *  Each state will establish a Parliamentary Assessment and Evaluation Commission and a separate Independent Commission to evaluate the implementation of the peace agreement. If the agreement is endorsed by the legislature in each state, it will become "the final settlement" of the political conflict there. *  If the agreement is not being fully implemented, negotiations will be held with the National Government to rectify the shortcomings. *  A state executive will consist of a state governor, a state council of ministers and local government in each state. A state legislature will prepare and adopt a constitution in each, and may relieve the governor of the state of his/her functions. Both institutions will be represented 55 percent by the National Congress Party, and 45 percent by the SPLM. The governorship will rotate in each state between both sides. *  The two states will have significant autonomy over key areas, including: state police; local government; media; social welfare; civil service at state level; state judiciary; internal and external borrowing of money; the provision of health care; regulation of business; enforcement of state laws; provision of education; town planning; state statistics and surveys; state referenda; state budget and taxation. *  The National and State governments will have concurrent powers over some areas, including: economic and social development; tertiary education; health policy; urban development; delivery of public services; disaster preparedness; electricity generation; water and waste management; gender policy and women's empowerment. *  Seventy-five percent of the total National Reconstruction and Development Fund will be allocated for war-affected areas, particularly to the Nuba mountains, southern Blue Nile and Abyei. *  The two states will be represented in national institutions in proportion with their population size

(IRIN, Nairobi, May 28, 2004) -- Aid efforts in southern Sudan are being hampered by restrictions on work permits and ad hoc taxes imposed by the emerging government and local authorities, according to humanitarian sources. 
NGOs in southern Sudan were being asked to pay a growing number of taxes or "fees", humanitarian sources told IRIN. Such tariffs included off-loading fees at airports; airport taxes (in addition to landing fees paid by aviation companies); a 10-percent tax on staff salaries; road licence fees; work permit fees; fees for boreholes in an NGO compound; three-month visas for foreign staff; and separate taxes for the use of email, short-range radios, long-range radios and satellite phones. 
Whereas some of the taxes have been established for some time, others are being introduced on an ad hoc basis. One aid worker said that last week the NGO he was working for had been asked to pay 2,500 Kenyan shillings (US $31) in tax for latrines in its compound. On top of this, the NGO allowed aid workers to stay in the compound on a strict cost-sharing basis, for which it had to pay a 10-percent tax. 
Aid workers say they are finding it increasingly difficult to explain the growing expenses to donors, who want to know exactly what their money is being spent on. "Our budget is from individual church-backed donors, who want to see all of the money going to the beneficiaries," said Jürgen Prieske, the regional representative of Diakonie Emergency Aid. 
Due to disasters and emergencies in other parts of the world, for the last two years it had become difficult for NGOs like Diakonie to raise the necessary funds for Sudan, he added. 
Ahead of a peace agreement with the Sudanese government, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) is faced with the daunting task of transforming itself from a fragmented rebel movement which has been fighting a war for 38 years since independence, into a legitimised government. 
A source from one aid agency told IRIN it was now paying 3 percent of its total budget to the Sudanese authorities in taxes and fees. "It makes it easier to pay taxes if you see what the money is being spent on," he commented. 
A second contentious issue for aid workers in southern Sudan is that of work permits. Since 2003, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SRRC), the SPLM/A's humanitarian wing, has introduced a new system of permits for all expatriates in an effort to create jobs for Sudanese. 
A letter sent to an NGO by Aloisio Emor Ojetuk, the chairman of the Work Permit Panel, states that expatriate cooks, drivers, mechanics, logisticians, camp managers, administrators and field coordinators, who all occupied "support" positions, would be routinely denied work permits and asked to leave Sudan immediately. 
Whereas some of the skills necessary to undertake these jobs are available in southern Sudan, others are impossible to find, say aid workers. Making matters worse, many of those who have been denied permits were also directly involved in training local Sudanese. 
Ian Sinkinson of Tearfund told IRIN that two programme managers, four logisticians, and one vehicle technician had all been refused work permits, and had been given until 30 June to leave Sudan. "We are trying to recruit Sudanese logisticians to work alongside our staff and then take over. But there isn't enough time to train up the local people," he said. 
Diakonie staff were receiving on-the-job training, especially in village health services, but also in skills such as carpentry, metalwork and masonry, which were essential to the smooth running of the primary health care programme, Prieske told IRIN. If the expatriate staff were not there to train them, then the Sudanese would also have to be let go, he said. 
The Diakonie health-care programme in Rumbek and Cheibet counties had already trained several hundred Sudanese village health workers, while an exit strategy had been agreed on with the SPLM health secretariat after three years, he said. "Not only in Sudan but worldwide it is our basic policy to integrate, and hand over programmes as soon as possible to the local structures." 
Elijah Malok, the head of the SRRC, told IRIN that there was no question of southern Sudanese lacking the necessary skills to fill in for the expatriates no longer being allowed to work in Sudan. "That is a lie. Let them come and prove it. They do not want to give jobs to the southerners," he said. 
But others say the SRRC is overestimating the levels of education in southern Sudan. "The skills and education are simply not available," commented one source. "They hugely overestimate their own skills." 
Meanwhile, humanitarian workers agree that the current problems are affecting both the timeliness and quality of aid being offered to southern Sudanese. "Humanitarian assistance is for the people of Sudan. We expect the de facto authorities to help us to help their own people," commented one Western donor

The Sudanese government and the main rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), signed three key protocols in the Kenyan town of Naivasha on Wednesday evening, bringing them one step closer to a comprehensive peace agreement. 
The deals, which cover power-sharing arrangements and the administration of three contested areas during a six-year interim period, bring to an end direct political negotiations between Sudanese First Vice-President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha and SPLM/A Chairman John Garang. The bilateral negotiations have been in progress on and off for nine months. 
After a three-week break, technical committees are expected to resume talks to work out methods of implementing the six protocols signed to date and agree on a formula for a permanent ceasefire by mid-July, after which a comprehensive peace agreement will be signed. 
The breakthrough, which came late on Wednesday after 101 days of continuous talks and a nine-hour delay in opening the signing ceremony, was widely welcomed by both northern and southern Sudanese, diplomats, ministers and friends. 
But watchdogs like Human Rights Watch (HRW) are urging caution. HRW pointed out that a civil war continued to rage in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where over one million people have been displaced by government-allied militias. The signing of the peace protocols must not deflect criticism of the ongoing campaign of "ethnic cleansing" there, said HRW on Wednesday. 
Similarly, in the Shilluk Kingdom of Upper Nile, militias have displaced between 50,000 and 150,000 people since February in clashes over territory and resources. 
The protocols outlined the formation of a decentralised government of national unity, and devolution of power to Sudan's individual states, Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka said during the ceremony. The south would have its own government constitution, which would conform with the interim national constitution, he added. 
Garang will be the first vice-president of the government of national unity, and president of the government of southern Sudan. 
Administrations for the contested Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile have also been agreed upon, while Abyei will be administered by the institution of the national unity presidency for the interim period and then allowed to hold a referendum on secession. 
Amid a chorus of ululating and singing women, Garang announced that both sides had "reached the crest of the last hill in our tortuous ascent to heights of peace... There are no more hills ahead of us: I believe [that what is] the remaining is flat ground." 
Taha said it was a day for development, peace and stability in Sudan. "It is our duty in Sudan... to really put life in the protocols signed today and put them into action," he said. "With the same degree of determination, sincerity and patience, we are resolved to really put those words into action." 
Garang added that the deals had laid down "the foundations for the pillars of inviolate and enduring peace" for three reasons: firstly, both sides had addressed issues of fair power-sharing after 38 years of war since independence; secondly, they had mapped out political solutions that could serve as models for other marginalised areas, such as war-torn Darfur; and thirdly, they had opened Sudan's political space "widely to accommodate everybody". 
"It is a paradigm shift of historical proportions," he said. "Things will not and cannot be the same in Sudan." 
The agreements already signed are the Machakos protocol governing a referendum on secession for the south after a six-year interim period; a protocol on security arrangements during the interim; and another on wealth-sharing. 
The most important tasks ahead were reconciliation and development, said Garang, in a country where over 50 percent of the population was illiterate, only one out of every 50 children attending school finished primary education, and women had a one-in-nine chance of dying in childbirth. Vowing to fight corruption, he said: "Our duty is first and foremost to dedicate ourselves to ensuring that our people's vital and basic needs are satisfied... That is the only way to consolidate peace." 
HRW reported on Wednesday that optimism over Sudan's future must not be hasty. As recently as Tuesday, Arab militias had attacked five villages 15 km south of Nyala in Southern Darfur, killing 46 civilians and wounding at least nine others, it said. The militias, known as the Janjawid, had been accompanied by government soldiers in three Land Cruisers armed with antiaircraft artillery, it said. 
The government has repeatedly denied allegations of ethnic cleansing, and the involvement of its soldiers in attacks on civilians in Darfur. 
The UN reported this week that due to continuing attacks and burning of villages 30 km to 40 km south of Nyala, the influx of internally displaced persons into a camp outside the town had also continued unabated. This was in addition to the influx generated by an attack last week on the village of Kossolongo, some 16 km from Nyala and its surrounding villages. 
"The government's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur raises real questions about whether Khartoum is really willing to comply with today's peace accord in the south," said HRW. 
The HRW statement also condemned the UN Security Council for failing, in its presidential statement issued this week, to identify those responsible for the attacks in Darfur. 

“It is a decisive step forward, but on terrain that is mined and full of pitfalls,” said monsignor Cesare Mazzolari, a Comboni father and bishop of the diocese of Rumbek, in response to the accord signed in Kenya between the Islamic government of Khartoum and the secessionists of southern Sudan on Wednesday. “It is a very fragile and delicate accord, which nonetheless opens a breach towards peace”. The prelate, who served as a missionary in the country for over 20 years before becoming bishop, does not hide a degree of scepticism regarding the accord – welcomed unanimously by the international community – that should pave the way to a definitive peace after over 20 years of conflict. “This ‘peace’ has thrown a veil over the south and north of the country, but to my eyes it looks like nothing more than a ‘divide et impera’ that does not resolve the real causes of the war,” monsignor Mazzolari told MISNA. “I do not understand why the international community was in such a hurry for the sides to sign an accord which, among other things, does nothing to resolve the question of Darfur.” Though not involved in the war in the south, Darfur (western Sudan) has been the scene of a conflict between two local armed groups and government troops – backed by Arab militias - for over a year. “The long war between north and south has fuelled hatred towards the regime of Khartoum, but also between the tribes themselves,” adds the bishop of Rumbek. “In my diocese 21 conflicts are currently underway between the Denka, who do not accept the new political and civilian administrators appointed by the rebels of SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army)”, namely the armed movement in the south that signed the accord with the government on Wednesday. The prelate recalls that in the south of the country “over 96,000 SPLA combatants are active: now who is going to disarm them?” It is calculated that over 20 years of war have claimed over two million lives, mostly through disease and hunger. “I fear that this peace has been imposed by the international mediators. It seems to me that my people are not yet ready and now risk undergoing new suffering due to the traumas experienced in these years of conflict, which have still not been resolved.” According to the bishop of Rumbek, the signing of a protocol agreement is not enough: “Now the international community will have to accompany us: not just by delivering aid, but guaranteeing the reconstruction of roads and infrastructures, building health centres and wells. We need medicines in particular, but for now aid cannot be transported overland,” adds the prelate, who comes from the northern Italian province of Brescia. “The Church is now faced with an important task: to tell the people that peace has arrived, to explain their civil rights and responsibilities. We will need courageous people to uphold these rights in society, especially since society has been completely excluded from the peace negotiations,” he continued. The talks began in Kenya in September 2002 and in the last nine months involved the deputy president of Sudan, Ali Osman Taha, and the SPLA leader, John Garang (of the Denka tribe). “I would like to turn to the international community,” concludes Monsignor Mazzolari. “I beg you not to abandon us now, after this called-for accord; this would only pave the way for illegal groups. Help us also to build mutual trust between north and south, which does not come about by simply signing a document.”

Five dead and 20 infected: this is the toll of the new outbreak of Ebola registered recently in South Sudan. The news was confirmed to MISNA by Dick Thompson, WHO (World Health Organisation) spokesman, underlining that the situation appears under control and the spreading of the haemorrhagic fever halted. Thompson explained that a team of the MSF (Doctors Without Borders) has been sent to the zone of Hay Cuba, in the Yambio county (South Sudan), individuated as the hotbed, to curtain the spread. WHO referred that a mission will also be sent in the next days to verify the needs of the population and the doctors studying the epidemic. Thompson also denied to MISNA reports of some international newspapers of a new strain of Ebola, which gets its name from the river of the Democratic Republic of Congo where it emerged for the first time in 1976. The Ebola virus is one of two members of a family of RNA viruses called the Filoviridae. There are four identified subtypes of Ebola virus. Three of the four have caused disease in humans: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, and Ebola-Ivory Coast. The fourth, Ebola-Reston, has caused disease in nonhuman primates, but not in humans. The incubation period for Ebola HF ranges from 2 to 21 days. The onset of illness is abrupt and is characterized by fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, sore throat, and weakness, followed by diarrhoea, vomiting, and stomach pain. A rash, red eyes, hiccups and internal and external bleeding may be seen in some patients. Death can occur around 72 hours after the appearance of the first symptoms. For the moment there is no cure nor vaccine, though scientists and researchers are working on developing additional diagnostic tools to assist in early diagnosis of Ebola HF and conducting ecological investigations of Ebola virus and its possible reservoir. The mortality rate can reach up to 90% of cases.

You both will need to sell your agreement to the Sudanese people and mobilise your support,” Hilde Farfjord, Norway’s development minister and mediator in the peace negotiations for southern Sudan, told the two signatories of yesterday’s agreement paving the way to a definitive solution to the conflict underway in the south of the country for over 20 years. The deputy president Ali Osman Taha and the leader of SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) John Garang now have the task of convincing the most extreme fringes of their respective sides and of working out the details of the peace accord, now that all the questions that have fuelled the conflict between the south (black, animist and Christian) and the north (white, Arab and Muslim) have been resolved. This morning the state radio announced that Taha would probably return to Khartoum today to explain in detail the documents signed in Kenya yesterday evening. Instead, following yesterday’s ceremony Garang said that “nine months is what God has prescribed as a full term (referring to the direct talks between himself and Taha, which began in September 2003, ed.). We hope we have delivered to you a healthy baby – but then of course a child needs to be nurtured.” Some commentators have pointed up the fact that, despite the agreements between the two sides, there are elements that could still represent a threat to peace. These include the conflict in the remote western region of Sudan, which has been underway for just over a year with terrible consequences for the local population (one million internally displaced people, 130,000 refugees and thousands of dead), and the fact that many components of the southern opposition (civil society and at least 30 small armed groups, according to international press sources) have been left out of the peace accord signed in Naivasha. “We commend both sides for their commitment to peace and urge them to move quickly to work out details of a formal ceasefire and related security arrangements,” United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a statement yesterday. The chief mediator, the Kenyan Lazarus Sumbeiywo, has announced that if everything goes according to plan the ‘global peace agreement’ should be signed between the end of June and the beginning of July. 

Last night’s agreement between the government of Sudan and the rebels of SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) on the division of power and the status of three contested areas signalled an end to the negotiations that got underway in Kenya in June 2002, paving the way for an end to the longest-running conflict on the African continent, in the south of the country, where two decades of fighting have claimed over two million lives. Now that all the issues pending between north and south have been resolved, all that remains is for the two sides to decide how to apply the agreement before a formal and definitive peace agreement can be signed. However, despite pressure to the contrary, yesterday’s agreement - signed in front of diplomats and mediators from all over the world - makes no mention of the other conflict underway in Africa’s largest country, which started in the remote western region of Darfur in February 2003. The international community has nonetheless greeted the accord with a deep sigh of relief, after the ceremony, originally scheduled for 13.00 local time, was delayed by ten hours; the Sudanese vice president Ali Osman Mohamad Taha and SPLA leader John Garang finally signed the protocols in question in the luxury hotel in Naivasha (roughly 70 kilometres from the capital Nairobi) at 23.00 local time. This accord, together with earlier agreements signed over the last few months, outlines the structure of the country during the transition: a government of national unity for six and a half years, followed by a referendum in the south on possible independence; the application of Islamic law (Sharia) only in the north (and not in the city of Khartoum, which will remain the capital during the period of national unity, and where the parliamentary and government offices will be located); an agreement on the distribution of oil revenues and on the deployment of military forces (which will not be unified, or will be unified only in part) in the various parts of the country. South Sudan has been the scene of a civil war since 1983, combining oil interests and the requests of the black, Christian and animist population for greater autonomy from the Arab, white and Muslim north. Armed clashes and famine caused by the war have left at least two million people dead, while hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes. Whether the developments in the south will have a positive effect on the conflict in Darfur remains to be seen. “Any accord that excludes us will never lead to real peace,” Abdel Wahed Mohammad Ahmad Nour, the leader of SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement), the main rebel group in Darfur, told the Sudanese newspaper ‘al-Hayat’ just a few days ago. His statement did not go unnoticed by the United Nations chief, Kofi Annan; in a statement released a short while ago he expressed his “satisfaction over the accord reached between Khartoum and SPLA” but called on the protagonists of the conflict in Darfur to resolve the crisis in the region as soon as possible.

The government of Sudan and the rebels of SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) have signed an important agreement that effectively ends the long process of negotiations and paves the way for a definitive agreement to end the 20-year conflict in the south of the country. The document, which was signed in Kenya last night, sanctions the division of power in the post-war period and the status of three regions, Abyei, South Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, which are contested by both sides as they are located in the north of the country but are historically linked to the south

The United Nations Security Council has condemned attacks on civilians in Sudan's western region of Darfur, and called on the government to disarm the Janjawid militia, which has largely been blamed for the violence.
UN News on Wednesday quoted a statement read out by the current president of the Council, Ambassador Munir Akram of Pakistan, as saying thousands of people had been killed in Darfur, while hundreds of thousands were at risk of dying in the coming months, due to the deteriorating humanitarian situation. 
"The Council also expresses its deep concern at the continuing reports of large-scale violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law in Darfur, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement and acts of violence, especially those with an ethnic dimension, and demands that those responsible be held accountable," Akram said.
The Council, while strongly condemning these actions, stressed that all parties to the humanitarian ceasefire agreement signed (on the 8th of) last month in the Chadian capital, N'djamena "committed themselves to refraining from any act of violence or any other abuse against civilian populations, in particular women and children, and that the government of Sudan also committed itself to neutralising the armed Janjawid militias".
The Council also called on opposition groups and the government to facilitate the immediate deployment of monitors in Darfur, and to ensure their free movement in the area. 
It expressed serious concern about continuing logistical impediments prohibiting a rapid response in the face of a "stark and mounting" crisis, and called on the government to fulfil its announced commitment to cooperate fully and expeditiously with relief efforts ahead of the approaching rainy season. In this respect, the Council called on all the parties to the Darfur conflict to allow "full, unimpeded access by humanitarian personnel" to the affected population.

The signing of the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the rebels of SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), which should mark the end of a 20-year conflict in the south of the country, is slow to arrive. Diplomats from all over the world, mediators and African figures are gathered in Naivasha, Kenya, for the historic accord, which was originally scheduled for 13.00 local time. However, unspecified difficulties led the organisers to delay the signing until 17.00. MISNA sources contacted in Kenya then confirmed that there was still no news of the agreement at 18.30. Supposedly imminent for months, the signing of a definitive agreement between SPLA and Khartoum has been delayed repeatedly since the end of last year: new problems would arise periodically just as the mediators said that an accord had almost been reached. However, yesterday a Kenyan foreign ministry spokesman announced that a series of protocols had been signed. The war, which began in 1983, has seen the Arab and Muslim north pitted against the black, predominantly Christian and animist populations in the south, although in reality ethnicity and religion are just two elements in a complex conflict, which is also and especially motivated by the fight over Sudan’s abundant oil resources. The current peace talks got underway in June 2002 under strong international pressure; the government of President Omar el Bashir and SPLA led by John Garang have already reached a first accord concerning the division of the oil revenue, the non application of the Sharia (Islamic law) in the south and the possibility for the south of holding an independence referendum in six years. Sudan currently produces 300,000 barrels of crude a day, which translate into two billion dollars for the state coffers; however, the population still lives in extreme poverty, especially in the south of the country

The international community has a last chance to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from dying in a man-made catastrophe in Sudan's western region of Darfur, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank warned on Sunday.
"Urgent action is required on several fronts if Darfur 2004 is not to join Rwanda 1994 as shorthand for international shame," said ICG in a new report entitled: "Sudan: Now or never in Darfur". The humanitarian situation was likely to get much worse before it got better, ICG warned. 
While it was "too late to prevent substantial ethnic cleansing" in Darfur, provided the UN Security Council acted decisively, there was "just enough" time to save hundreds of thousands of lives now directly threatened by Sudanese troops and militias, as well as by looming famine and disease,  said ICG.
The Sudanese government has repeatedly rejected allegations by a number of rights groups and the UN that it is implementing a policy of ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs in Darfur. Government-allied militias, known as the Janjawid, and troops are said to be implicated in the ongoing attacks on civilians. 
The one million-plus internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have been driven off their farmlands into urban centres are now facing imminent famine, say human rights groups. 
Addressing a rally in Southern Darfur State last week, President Umar Hasan al-Bashir said the government, the armed forces, the police forces and the justice and executive organs were ready to help Darfur "come out of its current crisis". 
He reiterated that the government wanted the displaced people and refugees to return to their home areas before the rainy season begins this month. 
According to the UN, there are numerous reports of local authorities trying to coerce the IDPs to return to their farms. But the IDPs say they cannot return until the Janjawid have been disarmed and held to account for their atrocities.
Kutum town, in Northern Darfur State, is a typical example: Roughly 124,000 IDPs from surrounding areas were reportedly there in mid-May, relying on a 20,000-strong host population. One of the largest Janjawid camps in Northern Darfur is also near Kutum, and serves as a base for ongoing attacks.
According to ICG, the international response to the Darfur conflict has been "slow and ineffectual". The renewable 45-day ceasefire signed on 8 April between Khartoum and Darfur's two rebel groups was not working in either military or humanitarian terms, while the political process the ceasefire was supposed to facilitate was "still-born", it said. 
The ceasefire negotiations had been poorly handled by all sides, while the inexperienced rebels were pushed into signing an agreement by the Chadian mediators, said ICG. "The final version [of the ceasefire agreement] did not include a number of points previously agreed to, including several [rebel] Sudan Liberation Army/Justice and Equality Movement amendments. When the parties brought this to [Chadian] President [Idriss] Deby's attention, he reassured them the draft would be fixed after the signing ceremony, but pleaded with them to sign immediately because the media was waiting," it said.
ICG added that the draft was not changed, and serious discrepancies remained between the signed English and Arabic versions. The English version stated that the "Sudanese government shall commit itself to neutralise the armed militias", while the Arabic version had an additional precondition attached to it, ICG noted: "Forces of the opposition shall be cantoned in locations that shall be identified. The Sudanese government shall commit itself to neutralise the armed militias." 
According to ICG, Khartoum's strategy for "neutralising the militias" has been to incorporate them into its formal police and security structures. 
Compounding matters, the African Union (AU) international monitoring commission - to be set up under the terms of the ceasefire agreement - has yet to be deployed, six weeks after the signing of the agreement.
An AU spokesman, Desmond Orjiako, told IRIN on Monday that a decision on when the mission would be deployed would be taken "soon", but could not specify exactly when.
According to ICG, the UN Security Council should immediately authorise planning for a military intervention in Darfur, focusing on the creation of half a dozen internationally protected concentrations of IDPs, the means of delivering assistance to them and the means of protecting the deliveries.
The report is available at: http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=2765

The advance party of a mission to monitor the respect of the ceasefire agreement signed by the actors in the conflict underway in the remote western region of Darfur on 8 April will reach the area over “the next few days”, the newly created Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) said today during its first meeting in Addis Ababa. Said Djinnit, the AU peace and security commissioner, told reporters that the mission would comprise approximately 100 people, including around 60 soldiers, and an armed escort of between 100 and 300 soldiers. The two rebel groups fighting against the government, the Khartoum executive and AU, European Union and United States representatives will have equal representation in the delegation. The first port of call will be the city of El Fasher in the state of North Darfur which, together with West and East Darfur, makes up the Darfur region. The PSC urged “the sides to fully and scrupulously apply the signed truce”, which the two sides claim has so far remained dead letter. “We remind the Sudanese government of its pledge to control and disarm the militias present in Darfur,” said Djinnit. In February 2003, two rebel groups – SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement) and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) - took up arms against Khartoum, which they accuse of neglecting Darfur as it is populated mainly by black people, and of financing militias of Arab predators known as Janjaweed which have long tormented the population in this part of Sudan, where some sources including local United Nations representatives say that a “new genocide” is underway. The fighting has created a million of internally displaced people, 130,000 refugees (all in neighbouring Chad) and 10,000 dead according to the most reliable estimates

The Islamic government of Khartoum and rebels of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) have reached an agreement that paves the way toward a final accord to end the longest conflict underway in the African continent, begun in 1983. A spokesman of the Foreign ministry of Kenya, which is hosting the peace talks in the location of Naivasha, around 90km from the capital Nairobi, announced that the sides will sign a series of protocols tomorrow. The accord does not regard the conflict in Darfur, remote region of West Sudan, according to the United Nations theatre to an extremely serious humanitarian emergency provoked by over a year of fighting between local rebel groups and government troops, which support the Arab ‘Janjaweed’ paramilitary militias, accused of conducting an ethnic cleansing against the black population of the region. The accord reached today in Kenya resolves the dispute over three areas - Abyei, south Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, geographically in the north but always linked to the South – and the sharing of powers in the post-war period. Tomorrow’s signing should lead to the successive definition of a cease-fire and global accord – repeatedly delayed – to definitively end a conflict that in 21 years claimed over 2-million lives, for the most part civilians that died of famine and disease, also forcing millions of people to flee from South Sudan. The war began in 1983 between the Arab Muslim North and the black populations of the South, prevalently Animist and Christian; the ethnic-religious factor is in reality only one aspect of the complex conflict, also and above all motivated by the battle for the division of oil proceeds of Sudan, which with two and a half million squared kilometres is the largest nation of Africa, counting around 30-million inhabitants. The current peace talks began in June 2002 under strong international pressure; the government of President Omar al Bashir and the SPLA headed by John Garang already reached a first accord on the division of oil proceeds, the non-applicability of Sharia (Islamic law) in the South, the reorganisation of armed forces (though it will not exactly be a joint military) and the possibility for the South to hold a referendum for its independence within 6 years. Sudan currently produces around 300,000 barrels of oil per day, guaranteeing earnings of $2-billion, but the population continues living in exreme poverty, particularly in the South

More than 100 Sudanese refugee women clad in brightly coloured flowing dresses queue patiently to draw water from the yellow plastic blister by a borehole at Kounoungo refugee camp in eastern Chad. But each of the 9,000 refugees in this city of brown tents and makeshift shelters of wooden boughs is only allowed seven litres per day  - half the normal ration.
Kounoungo, like the six other camps for refugees from Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur, is less than six months old, but already it is overcrowded, and more refugees keep on crossing the border.
"I am happy to be safe here, but water and food are scarce. We therefore have to beg in the village," said Muhammad Alawi, who arrived at Konoungo with his family 10 days earlier, but, like hundreds of other refugees, was still waiting for registration.

Water supplies a major issue 

The scarcity of water is a major issue in the flat semi-desert of eastern Chad, whose sandy wastes are dotted with dry bushes and acacia trees. In fact, availability of water is one of the main factors deciding the location of the refugee camps built so far and a further three that are still planned.
"There are problems with water," said Natien Sioueye, the water manager at Kounoungo camp. "The Sphere standard ration is 15 litres per person per day, but we can only provide seven." Sphere is a set of minimum standards of human welfare which major relief agencies seek to achieve when conducting relief operations.

Impending rains threaten food availability 

Relief workers are also worried that they do not have enough food in place to feed a refugee population now twice as high as they had expected a few months ago when contingency plans were drawn up and appeals were made to donors. They warn that the situation could reach crisis proportions once the five-month rainy season starts in June, turning the dirt roads of eastern Chad into quagmires of mud virtually impossible for heavily laden trucks to negotiate.
"During the rainy season, delivery takes two or three weeks instead of two or three days, and items risk coming late," said Jean Charles Dei, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) head of operations in Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad. "We are fighting to position our stocks and cover refugees before the rainy season," he added.
WFP appealed earlier this year for US $19.4 million to feed an expected 100,000 refugees from Darfur. But nearly double that number have arrived in Chad already, and more keep flooding across the border, fleeing the Janjawid Arab militias, who systematically kill their menfolk and burn and pillage their villages. However, to date WFP has only received $12.7 million for the Darfur refugees.

Overcrowding in refugee camps set to worsen

Alphonse Malanda, the head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Chad, told IRIN that as of 21 May, 74,446 registered refugees had been admitted to the seven official camps in eastern Chad. However, about 105,000 others were waiting in makeshift shelters along the 600-km border with Sudan for the UNHCR's white-painted trucks to come and pick them up, he added. 
Other NGOs are now working with similarly increasing numbers. The Washington-based Refugees International (RI) recently estimated that there were already 200,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad, while the Catholic relief agency Caritas uses a working figure of 180,000.
Although UNHCR is already planning the construction of three more refugee camps, Malanda warned that more might be needed. "If the influx continues during or after the rainy season, we will have to increase the number of camps," he told IRIN.
Relief workers are now talking seriously about the need for an expensive 900-km airlift from the Chadian capital, N'djamena, to keep the camps adequately supplied during the five-month rainy season which is about to start. RI has suggested that French military transport planes and helicopters based in N'djamena could be used for this purpose.
One WFP official said his organisation was also examining the feasibility of trucking food across the Sahara desert from Libya. The distance from the Libyan Mediterranean port of Benghazi to Abeche is nearly 3,000 km, but only half that distance is served by proper roads. The second half of the journey would have to be made along poorly marked desert tracks.

Malnutrition increasing

Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has launched a campaign asserting that malnutrition rates are often worse inside the refugee camps than outside them. 
"The problem in the camps is that food is only distributed to people that have been registered," Michel Francoys, the head of MSF-Belgium in Chad, told IRIN. "Strangely enough, malnutrition is higher in the camps than among those who have stayed along the border," he added. "In Konoungo, for instance, there are more and more malnutrition cases. In Iridimi and Toloum, there are more and more diarrhoea cases, which, when combined with moderate malnutrition, cause severe malnutrition. In the Iriba therapeutic feeding centre, we are treating 70 children under five. It is serious," he stressed.
Asked to elucidate, Malanda said MSF's comments only applied to new arrivals in the camps and were not based on a properly conducted survey. "MSF has not undertaken a proper investigation, it has only conducted superficial screening," he told IRIN.
Kounoungo, with its neat rows of tents, each sheltering family groups of seven or eight people, was originally built to house 6,000 refugees, but UNHCR said 9,000 had already crowded in, of whom 1,000 had been registered in the past two weeks. 
Hundreds more, like Alawi and his family, have congregated in makeshift shelters made from branches ripped of trees in a shanty town on the edge of the camp, waiting to be registered and admitted. The lucky ones have managed to bring a few cows or donkeys with them, but there is virtually nothing left in the surrounding area for these animals to eat, so they nibble at the growing piles of rubbish and the branches used to construct the shelters. 
The isolated camp is four hours' drive from Abeche, reachable only on sandy roads through an arid empty plain, where the only sign of life is the occasional cow or camel. 
At nearby Touloum refugee camp, overcrowding is even worse. Originally built to house 6,000 people, it already accommodates 17,000, and new arrivals keep on coming. "Every day, new people are coming on foot, on donkeys, in convoys," said Alfred Demotibaye, who manages the camp on behalf of Secours catholique pour le développement, the Chadian branch of Caritas.
Chad is a poor, landlocked and largely desert country three times the size of France, with virtually no tarred roads or other infrastructure. Kris Kanowski, the UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, recently described it as "one of the most inhospitable terrains in which we have ever had to operate".

Impending transport problems

Dei of the WFP office is worried that the private Chadian truck owners whom he relies on to keep the camps supplied with food, may become unwilling to hire out their vehicles during the rainy season, thereby presenting him with a transport crisis. "We rely on private trucks, which are not always in a decent shape, and the owners do not always want to let them go to faraway places where they will get stuck during the rains," he told IRIN.
Nor was the government keen to see the truckers churn up the roads in the wet season, he noted. "The authorities do not always want trucks to ply roads that they will then have to repair," Dei said.
Relief workers believe that some camps, such as Goz Amer and Esterena near the southern section of the 600-km border with Sudan, will become completely cut off once the rains start. Such places will then only be reachable by helicopters or airdrops.
Operating in eastern Chad is not only difficult and expensive because of the distances involved and the lack of decent roads: relief workers say virtually everything they need, be it supplies or trained staff, has to be brought in from other countries because Chad itself has so little to offer. 
"It is very difficult to find qualified medical personnel, even just to assist," Carla Martinez, MSF-Holland's head of mission, told IRIN. "The solution is to have more expatriates, but this requires even more funds," she added.

Funding shortfall

And it is not just MSF that is short of funding. Virtually all relief agencies operating in eastern Chad complain that they have less money than they need to prevent an emergency degenerating into a full-scale humanitarian crisis.
UNHCR's Janowski told reporters in Geneva: "Of the nearly US $21 million we have asked for from donors, only $13 million have been contributed so far this year. We have now fully spent it and we are using the funds we have borrowed from our operational reserve funds to pay for the programme."
While shortages of water and food are the main problems facing relief workers at present, health issues will start to loom much larger once the rains start in June. Relief workers fear that many people will drink contaminated surface water lying in pools and normally dry wadis and that diseases which are already decimating the local livestock population will grow worse.
"During the rainy season, numerous animal carcasses will contaminate the wadis, seriously endangering people's lives," Francoys of MSF Belgium said.
"An awful lot of animals have died since the arrival of the refugees on Chadian soil and we do not know why," said Sonia Perrassol, an MSF coordinator based in Abeche. "It is true there is not enough food, but there might have been epidemics, and this is what the Chadian Ministry of Agriculture is trying to find out."
"It is difficult to tell how the situation will evolve," said Francoys of MSF Belgium. "The issue of the Janjawid attacks has not been solved yet. Let us hope that a solution will be found for the population stuck in the Darfur region, and that they will get the assistance needed, otherwise we [in Chad] will be faced with a catastrophic situation."

Around fifty people were killed in the remote western Sudanese region of Darfur in an attack against a village by the ‘Janjaweed’, militias of Arab thugs allied with the Khartoum government in the conflict underway for over a year in this zone of Sudan. The news was reported by international press sources, citing declarations issued by the main rebel movement active in Darfur, the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement). According to Muhamed Mirsal dello Sla-m, 56 people (45 according to other sources) were killed by the Janjaweed in the small village of Abquarajel (also called Abqa Rajil), a few dozens of kilometres south of Nyala, main city of the State of South Darfur, which together with North and West Darfur make up the region of Darfur. MISNA sources contacted this morning in the zone were not for the moment able to confirm the events, though underlining that the area has for weeks been considered high risk. While news was emerging last night of the attack, the African Union referred that the meeting of the Commission for the monitoring of the cease-fire undersigned between the protagonists of the Darfur conflict has been postponed to May 26 and 27. The creation of the Commission, which was supposed to convene over the weekend, was foreseen by the truce signed by the rebels and government on April 8, though so far it only exists on paper. The objective of the commission is to constitute an observation mission of around a hundred men to be deployed in Darfur to verify eventual cease-fire violations, which both sides accused each other of violating already 48 hours from the signing. Diplomatic sources contacted by MISNA in Khartoum explained that there are growing concerns in the Sudanese capital over the events in Darfur. Based on reports, police searches and checkpoints have in fact increased significantly over the past days, particularly during the night. Since February 2003 the SLA-M and JEM officially rose in arms against Khartoum, accused of neglecting Darfur because inhabited prevalently by blacks and of financing the Janjaweed that have for years been causing death and destruction in Darfur, where according to some sources, including local United Nations representatives, a “new genocide” is underway. In a little over 12 months of combat the Darfur conflict has already resulted in a million internally displaced, 130,000 refugees (all in neighbouring Chad) and thousands of victims, 10,000 based on the most reliable estimates.

The Commission in charge of monitoring the cease-fire undersigned between the protagonists of the conflict underway in the remote West Sudan region of Darfur will convene for the first time over the weekend in Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia. The news was referred by officials of the African Union, the continental organisation that directs the commission, specifying that the meeting should be attended by all the parts involved in the conflict: the central Islamic government of Khartoum and representatives of the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement) and the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement), the two groups that since February 2003 rose against the Sudanese administration. The meeting will be mediated by the African Union, European Union and the United States. The creation of the commission for the monitoring the cease-fire was foreseen in the truce signed by the rebels and government last April 8, though its existence had so far remained a mere formality. The objective of the commission is to constitute an observation mission of around a hundred men to be deployed in Darfur to verify any eventual truce violations, which both sides accuse each other of violating already 48 hours after the signing. According to a representative of the African Union interviewed by the AFP, if some divergences should be overcome on the composition of the observation team and its security, the mission could already be deployed in Darfur in the next days. Meanwhile, the Sudanese government referred to have reopened access to Darfur for humanitarian workers, that for the next three months will be able to enter the region with visas issued by their respective nations of origin, without any longer need to request special government permits. This decision should consent the international NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organisations) and UN agencies, for time emphasising the impossibility to move around freely in Darfur, to take prompt action to bring assistance to the around a million internally displaced in a little over a year of conflict. Since February 2003 the SLA-M and JEM rose against the Khartoum government, accusing it of neglecting Darfur, because prevalently inhabited by blacks and of financing the militias of Arab thugs (known as Janjaweed) that have been causing death and destruction for years in this part of Sudan, where according to various sources including local UN representatives, a “new genocide” is underway. In a little over 12 months of combat the Darfur war has already resulted in 1-million internally displaced, 130,000 refugees (all in neighbouring Chad) and tens of thousands of deaths, 10,000 based on the most reliable estimates.

In an effort to speed up the humanitarian response to the Darfur crisis, the government of Sudan said on Thursday it would issue visas within 48 hours and waive the requirement for travel permits to the region.
The government said that with effect from 24 May it would grant aid workers from the UN, NGOs, and the International Committee of the Red Cross "direct entry visas" from abroad within 48 hours of application, and that the visas would be valid for three months. 
Aid workers were only required to hold a visa and provide the Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs with their names and itineraries, said a joint communique from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Humanitarian Affairs in Khartoum.
Delays in granting both visas and travel permits to Darfur have to date significantly hampered aid delivery to the region. The UN in Khartoum said on Thursday there were at least 116 humanitarian workers awaiting either entry visas or travel permits. The earliest application pending dated from 3 April, and the most recent from 18 May.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added that it had received one travel permit on Thursday, while other permits that had been promised had not yet materialised.
On 18 May, the US government called on Sudan to allow aid workers into Darfur more easily. "The government has continued to play games with travel permits while the humanitarian situation in Darfur has deteriorated," said the State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher. Three-day permits had been issued to some US aid workers, but only after the three days of their validity had expired, he added.
On Thursday, in response to the relaxed rules, Boucher, said: "We're reserving judgment until we see this new policy implemented, but we hope that these policy decisions will be implemented because that would change at least some of the problems we've had to date." 
He added that it was unclear how soon aid workers already waiting in Khartoum, who have been granted visas but not travel permits, would be able to go to Darfur. 
It also remains unclear how aid workers would be able to work around the travel permits required to leave regional capitals to visit project sites. 
Despite a renewable 45-day humanitarian ceasefire signed by Khartoum and the region's two rebel groups on 8 April, clashes have continued with ongoing attacks against civilians by government-allied militias known as Janjawid. An African Union ceasefire commission was established as part of the agreement, but has yet to meet or deploy observers. 
With thousands of Janjawid militias on the loose - Human Rights Watch estimates 20,000 - the displaced have said they cannot go home to their farms, and are currently missing the planting season. "Security is reported by the IDPs [internally displaced persons] as the top priority for assistance, before food, shelter and medicine," the UN reported on Thursday.
But the government said it could disarm the Janjawid while the rebels were still active. Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il reportedly said last week that "those who want us to interrupt the actions of the militias now must understand that this is not possible... They forget that there is a rebellion going on and [the rebels] carry arms and threaten the tribes."
Meanwhile, an increasing number of reports are being received of attempts to coerce IDPs in Darfur to return to their homes and farms ahead of the rainy season. The UN reported that "government pressure for involuntary relocation and return resonates throughout field reports".

The UN and aid agencies have underestimated the numbers of refugees from Sudan's Darfur region who have crossed into Chad, and must urgently revise their appeals to donors for more funding, according to the advocacy group, Refugees International (RI).
In a statement released this week, RI said a combined revised appeal from UN agencies in Chad needed to take into account "the new realities" on the ground. These included almost doubling the numbers of refugees used by agencies as statistics for planning purposes, and the fact that the refugees would be in Chad for at least another year.
"After completing a two-week assessment mission to eastern Chad, RI has concluded that the real number of Darfur refugees there is around 200,000, not the 110,000 planning figure that has been used by the United Nations and aid agencies," said RI. Donors would also need to respond with urgency to the appeal, it added.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Kitty McKinsey, told IRIN that UNHCR was currently working with the figure of 125,000 refugees. "We are aware that the actual figure may be higher," she said. "We are working urgently with our Chadian partners to put together more accurate figures."
The "fluid population" was extremely difficult to count, she said, because the refugees were constantly on the move.
Laura Melo, a spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP), said the organisation was "currently revising its appeal and its working figures" to address the increasing needs in Chad. "The budget revision that is prepared targets a number close to the one referred to by RI," she said, adding that the document was not finalised yet. 
The challenges involved in assisting refugees in eastern Chad, who are scattered along a 600-km stretch of border between the two countries, are enormous. The area is extremely hostile and arid, water is extremely scarce and expensive to find, and the infrastructure needed to transport aid is extremely poor. 
To move supplies from the Cameroonian port of Douala to eastern Chad took between two and three weeks, RI reported. As a result, malnutrition rates in refugee camps were on the rise, it said, as well as reports of deaths among refugees, especially the elderly.
In recent weeks the international community has been heavily criticised for its lack of response to the refugees' plight. Funding for the crisis has been slow and inadequate. 
According to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), malnutrition inside the refugee camps is actually worse than outside because they are so overcrowded. Sanitation facilities in most of  the camps were also "totally inadequate", said the agency last week. 
In one camp there was one latrine per 400 refugees. "This is 20 times greater than the international standard of a maximum of 20 people per latrine. It's absolutely unacceptable." 
Although UNHCR and international NGOs had had teams on the ground in Chad for months, progress had been "painfully slow" as the crisis escalated, said MSF, noting that sufficient shelter, food and water had not been organised, and that some of the camps were filled to double their capacity. 
Ron Redmond, UNHCR's chief spokesman in Geneva, told IRIN that the camps were overcrowded because water was so difficult to find, which hampered UNHCR's ability to build more of them. "There are so many people and so few suitable sites," he said. 
Meanwhile the tens of thousands of refugees - over 58,000 have been transferred to camps with a further 10,000 moving spontaneously - who are not in the camps continue to be under threat from Janjawid militia incursions along the Chadian border, says UNHCR. 
Rains, which will begin in earnest in June, are also about to largely cut them off from aid. Within a month, the numerous river beds or wadis in the area will fill up, slicing the area into small pieces and making the settlements of scattered refugees unreachable by land, according to RI.
Returning to Sudan is out of the question. Interviewees reported to RI that they would not consider returning to Sudan unless the Janjawid militias were disarmed, and they were given strong security guarantees, possibly in the form of a multinational UN military presence. 
A number said they wanted to be transferred to camps in Tine Chad, but were being prevented from leaving Bahai (in the north of western Darfur straddling the border) by local authorities who felt they were providing the town with economic support, Fidele Lumeya of RI told IRIN.

Urgent steps needed 

WFP was currently feeding 64,000 refugees in the camps and was pre-positioning food for 150,000, Melo told IRIN. It was also "exploring a corridor" through the Chadian desert along which it could transport food during the rainy season, and was in the process of organising a fleet of nine trucks to transport food from Abeche to eastern Chad.
Pre-positioning food for the southern area along the border was a priority, she said, as it would be cut off first by the rains. In addition to supplying food in the camps, food for 22,000 refugees would also be distributed in the southern area of Pizi.
McKinsey said the six refugee camps that had been set up would rise to nine within two weeks. Meanwhile, UNHCR was continuing to search for water and new sites to build more camps, and would continue to transport the refugees during the rainy season. 
But according to MSF and RI, further steps need to be taken urgently to assist the refugees to survive. "More supplies, more aid staff on the ground, greater efficiency by UNHCR and international NGOs, whatever it takes," said Donatella Massai, who is responsible for MSF's operations in Chad. 
The UN needed to establish a more effective aid coordination structure in Abeche; the governments of Chad and Cameroon needed to designate an agency to expedite the handling of relief supplies; and UN agencies and donors needed to approach the French army in Chad to use its equipment and expertise, said RI.
"One option would be the use of French military planes and helicopters, which are based in Chad, to move shipments to what will become mostly stranded camps during the rainy season," suggested RI. 
UNHCR could also use French expertise and hydrological equipment, "as time is of the essence", it said.

Ten cases of a haemorrhagic fever, similar to Ebola, were confirmed on Thursday in Western Equatoria, southern Sudan, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported.
Health authorities in Yambio county had reported 15 cases of the fever, including four deaths, WHO reported. Laboratory testing performed by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and by the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) USA had confirmed "an Ebola-like infection" in 10 of the 15 cases.
Dr Abdullahi Ahmed, head of office in WHO southern Sudan, told IRIN the viral fever appeared to belong to the "Ebola family", in which there were a number of different strains, and that tests would reveal its precise nature within 48 hours.
No new cases have been reported for the last three days, while the most recent case had begun on 15 May, said a WHO press release. Two patients were being cared for in the isolation ward of Yambio hospital, while 102 contacts were being followed up by surveillance teams in a crisis committee that has been established in Yambio. 
"Close contacts of people who have been ill with the disease are followed for a period of 21 days from the date of last contact. Contacts who develop symptoms during this period can then rapidly be transferred to hospital, where they can be cared for safely, to prevent further transmission to others," WHO reported.
Abdullahi said that while there was no treatment for the highly contagious disease, by isolating patients and following up on people who had contact with patients, it could be contained. The disease, which causes bloody vomiting and diarrhoea, is passed on through body fluids.
Through support and care, said Abdullahi, about 50 percent of sufferers had survived similar viral diseases in southern Sudan in the past.
"Our biggest message is not to wash dead bodies," he added, advising relatives and friends of victims to immediately call local health authorities who would dispose of the bodies in special body bags, while respecting local burial rites. 
The disease, which has also occurred in neighbouring Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, may originally have been passed on to humans by animals, said Abdullahi.

For the past year, the poor rural population of eastern Chad has been voluntarily providing food and hospitality to a growing influx of refugees from Sudan's troubled Darfur region. But this has put a severe strain on their own meagre resources and could eventually leave them as destitute as their Sudanese guests. 
"It is war which brought the Sudanese here, and it is our duty to help them," said Isaac Suliman, a 40-year-old farmer from Amadina, a village near the Konoungo refugee camp. "They often stop by and ask for food. We give them what we have," he told IRIN on his way back from the local market. 
But grain prices have rocketed, and the trees that dot the flat semi-desert of eastern Chad have had their branches lopped off for firewood and poles to make crude shelters. In many places, the carcases of cattle and donkeys show that over-grazing has stripped the land of its meagre pasture, and that uncontrolled disease is taking its toll on livestock. 
Chadian government officials are already starting to ring the alarm bells. 
"Refugees are slowly being moved to refugee camps. But the local population, for its part, is only left with starvation. We fear what will happen when the rains come, since food items will become scarce and famine could follow," Moussa Abderamane Yodi, the government administrator of Chadian Tine, told IRIN. 
A dry river bed or wadi separates Chadian Tine from its Sudanese counterpart, which was once occupied by the Darfur rebels, but was recaptured by Sudanese government forces at the end of January. 
Before the Darfur rebellion erupted in February last year, Chadian Tine had a population of between 8,000 and 10,000. This, however, has been swollen by the influx of Sudanese refugees, bringing further pressure to bear on the meagre resources of the town and its surrounding countryside. 
"Tine has seen its population double or even triple over the last months, reaching 30,000 people at given periods," Yodi told IRIN. "If the refugees stay here longer, a major ecological catastrophe could arise," he added. 
Relief workers complain that inadequate sanitation facilities are forcing Tine's swollen population to defecate anywhere they can. The aid workers worry that this will cause health problems, particularly once the rains come in June, and wash the human excrement into wells and pools used for drinking water. 
On the outskirts of Tine, thousands of destitute women, children and old people huddle under makeshift shelters waiting for trucks from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to pick them up and transport them to official refugee camps well away from the troubled frontier. 
Food prices in Tine market have gone through the roof as a result of this influx of hungry people. One local woman, who identified herself only as Aïcha, complained that a bag of millet, which cost 10,000 CFA ($18) a year ago, had more than doubled in price to 25,000 CFA. 
The town's inhabitants have been the indirect beneficiaries of an emergency health post set up by Medecins Sans Frontieres-Belgium (MSF-B) to treat Sudanese refugees. It now also treats local people free of charge and is able to perform minor surgery, which is beyond the capability of Tine's government-run health centre. 
However, the arrival of MSF-B has also had the undesired effect of putting this poorly resourced government-run clinic virtually out of business. 
Paul Annys, MSF-B's coordinator in Tine, acknowledged the problem, but said: "There was no choice but set our own operation if we were to save lives. What we did to remedy the situation was to collaborate with the Chadian Ministry of Health so that they can carry out activities when we phase out." 
Yodi would like the relief agencies flooding into eastern Chad to help the refugees, to devote some of their time and money to helping the local Chadian population, which, he says, did so much to help the refugees before assistance began arriving from abroad. 
"Compensatory projects should be implemented for the local population," he told IRIN, warning that water supplies in Tine were running short, while the big trucks of the aid agencies were churning up the district's fragile dirt roads. 
The hospitality shown by the population of eastern Chad to the officially estimated 120,000 Sudanese refugees who have already crossed the border, is easily explained. The refugees are mostly members of the Zaghawah, Fur and Masalit ethnic groups, which straddle the border and have traditionally moved freely across it. Before the war in Darfur broke out, it was not unusual for men in Tine to have two wives, one on the Sudanese side of the town and the other on the Chadian. 
Indeed, relief workers say that many of the Sudanese refugees crossing into Chad today are actually Chadians who fled to Sudan during a succession of civil wars in Chad in the 1970s and 1980s, and their descendents. 
Most of the refugees are old men and women with children. The younger men have mostly stayed behind to look after whatever possessions the family might have left, or to fight on the side of the two rebel movements battling the Sudanese armed forces and their Janjawid militia allies. Many of them also perished at the hands of the Janjawid, who, according to the refugees, make a special point of hunting down and killing young men of fighting age. 
The Janjawid are Arabic-speaking nomads. Diplomats and relief workers say they have been armed by Khartoum to help Sudan's regular armed forces fight the rebels. But the Sudanese government denies arming the Janjawid to terrorise the local people. 
President Umar al-Bashir, on a visit to Nyala in Southern Darfur State this week, warned fighters in the region, saying those who carried arms to undermine Sudan's peace and stability would be regarded as "outlaws", Sudan Radio reported on Thursday. 
The Janjawid ride across the arid landscape mounted on horses and camels, looting and burning villages, chasing out their inhabitants and seizing their livestock. Chadian officials also accuse them of frequently raiding across the border into Chad. 
"The Janjawid are violating the Chadian territory, taking refugees and Chadian cattle, killing the herdsmen. Sometimes, they burn villages. They come in groups of 200 to 300," said Lt-Col Hamat Bong Aware, the military commander of the Ouaddai and Biltine regions; Tine is in Biltine. 
"There are confrontations between these militias and local herdsmen all the time. The herdsmen resist and there are numerous deaths and injuries," he added. 
In Tine itself, three people died and 15 were injured on 29 January when a Sudanese air force plane attacking rebel positions in the Sudanese side of the town dropped stray bombs on the Chadian side of the border. And local people complain that several Janjawid cross-border incursions in the district have taken place since then. 
The refugees arriving from Darfur are in a pitiful condition. Many have been stripped of all their possessions and have walked for several days in order to reach the border. 
"I left Karnoi [about 220 km northeast of Al-Junaynah, the capital of Western Darfur State] with my family after the Janjawid attacked and burnt the village," said Hasan Sulayman, a 43-year-old farmer from Darfur, who had finally made it to the Kounoungo refugee camp, deliberately built well away from the frontier, about 70 km southwest of Tine. 
"On the way to Chad, our cattle was stolen, leaving us with nothing," Sulayman added as he and dozens of other refugees who had spontaneously trekked to the UNHCR-run camp waited to be formally registered. "We had to beg to survive, but the people in Chad helped us a lot," he said. 
At Sulayman's side, his two wives sat chatting quietly on a mat in the shade of a tree. They were surrounded by children in ragged clothes trying to attract the attention of passers-by. All the family's meagre possessions hung in plastic bags from the tree's branches, remnants of a forgotten conflict.

Tensions are high between displaced cattle-owning Dinka and their host community in Mundri and Maridi counties of Equatoria, southern Sudan, over access to grazing land and water, according to humanitarian sources. 
Between 10,000 to 15,000 Dinka internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Bor County, Upper Nile, were currently living in a number of camps in Mundri and Maridi, with an estimated 200,000 head of cattle, according to Daniel Kiptugen, peace-building coordinator with Oxfam in southern Sudan. 
Tensions had arisen between the Dinka and the local Moru communities, because the cattle - a manifestation of Dinka wealth - were destroying local crops and fields, a task force mandated to investigate the conflict, said in a draft report. "The main problems in Mundri are between cattle and crops, not people. It is because the cattle destroyed the crops of the indigenous people, and that is what they depend upon for their survival," a local council of elders reported to the task force. 
Originally, the Dinka, who were displaced to the area in 1999 by Sudan's civil war, were welcomed by the Moru chiefs, church leaders, elders and authorities, and were given areas to settle there. But as the numbers of their cattle increased, they started moving about in search of grass and water, thereby becoming unpopular with the Moru. 
Finally, both communities agreed that the Dinka should return home with their cattle by April 2004, but "no progress" had been made so far, Kiptugen told IRIN. When they will return remains unclear. 
The exodus had already been delayed from 2003, because the Dinka claimed there was not enough water and grass en route to sustain their cattle. 
"The IDPs are asking for security from the [rebel] SPLA [Sudan People's Liberation Army] to go back. They have also asked for support to move, [requesting] local NGOs for drugs and plastic sheeting," said Kiptugen. He added that it was unclear whether people would be prepared to move without the requested support. 
Meanwhile, local farmers whose fields have been destroyed say the Dinka must move, and that they have identified routes for them to make the 150-km journey. 
A local cattle evacuation committee was formed in 2002, headed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) secretary in Bor, to assist the IDPs to return. In May 2002, Salva Kiir, the second-in-command of the SPLM/A, ordered that all cattle camps in the two counties be moved to Bor immediately. That month, three IDPs were killed by locals, aggravating the tensions between the two communities. 
Since then, some Dinka from Yirol had moved home, said Kiptugen, but the IDPs from Bor had stayed put. A local chief, Sosten Makako, commented: "It is unfortunate that we are talking about cattle movement over and over again. We have held several meetings and workshops in regard to the repatriation of the Bor cattle, to no good results. Orders were given and trodden underfoot." 
Some local people believed that the cattle camps belonged to prominent SPLA commanders who did not wish their cattle to be returned to Bor, humanitarian sources told IRIN. 
The community task force investigating the conflict reported that in mid-April tensions were high after the killing of an IDP in Ladinwa. In a reprisal attack, a group of IDPs had invaded a local village, looting properties, raping women, beating people and "committing all kinds of atrocities", it said. Over 35 head of local cattle and 100 goats were reportedly stolen. 
The task force reported that eight murders related to the conflict had taken place since 2001, which had not been investigated by local authorities. Girls have also reportedly been abducted, while looting and stealing of cattle is commonplace. 
Too many arms were available in the camps, the task force reported. Armed forces, or soldiers who had left the SPLA, were also present in the cattle camps, which was adding to the tensions. "The presence of the armed forces in the cattle camps escalated the whole problem. It would have been better to keep them in the nearest garrison," said the draft report. 
"The law is loose in the county; whenever a crime is committed, there is no serious action and law enforcement agents in the county are under threat from cattle owners, who are better armed than the police," said the council of elders. 
"It was a mistake from the beginning not to integrate the two communities under the administration of the two counties," commented an SPLA commander in Yei, Ayuen Alier.

The threat of famine is looming in the Darfur region of western Sudan as the whole population is "teetering on the verge of mass starvation", according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). 
A study, conducted in Mukjar (town) and Wadi Salih Province (of Western Darfur State) had revealed "dangerously high levels of malnutrition and mortality" with a rapidly deteriorating food-security situation, said MSF. No less than 21.5 percent of children under five years of age in the area were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition. 
Worse still, the study found that about 5 percent of the children under five (in families surveyed) had died in the last three months. "These levels of mortality are well in excess of emergency definitions. Most of the children died from simple causes such as hunger, diarrhoea and malaria," said MSF.
Sixty percent of deaths among children over five years of age were found to be due to war injuries.
Since a rebellion emerged in Darfur in February 2003, over one million people have been displaced and two million affected by the conflict, according to the UN. Hundreds of villages have been burned by Janjawid militias allied to the government, who have killed thousands of non-Arabs, deliberately destroyed water sources, raped women and girls and looted food stocks and livestock. The government denies arming the militias to terrorise the local people.
A ceasefire agreement signed on 8 April by the government and the region's two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, has yielded few results, with frequent reports of violations and persistent attacks on civilians.
Displaced Darfurians, who are too scared to return to their farms, are currently missing this year's planting season, which will mean no harvest next November. Meanwhile, the arrival of the rains in late May or early June will hamper or paralyse aid distribution in many areas. 
MSF warned that the situation was set to further deteriorate unless urgent action was taken. The whole population of Darfur (estimated to be several million) faced food shortages and the threat of starvation in the very near future unless substantial food distributions were organised, it said.
As the entire population was weakened by hunger, it would also become more vulnerable to diseases. Malaria and diarrhoeal diseases increased anyway during the rainy season, it noted. 
"The international community has known the extent of the crisis in Darfur for many months," said MSF Emergency Coordinator Ton Koene. "But people are still facing attacks. People are still terrified. Although some food has been distributed, much more is needed in the coming weeks - if not, more children and their parents will die."

The All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) called on Thursday for an investigation into what it said were "reports of crimes against humanity" in southern Sudan's Upper Nile state. It said attacks by armed militias had led to the displacement of 150,000 people.
"While the graphic media reports have caused all of us, the world over to focus attention primarily on the Darfur, we were informed that militias are raiding villages in the Upper Nile around Malakal with equal zeal as that of Darfur," AACC General Secretary Rev Dr Mvume Dandala told a news conference in Nairobi. 
Mvume led a team of AACC officials who visited Sudan last week. "The AACC believes there are strong grounds for investigating and monitoring reports of crimes against humanity in Sudan," he said.
"Reports reaching us last evening [Wednesday] from our contacts in Sudan said that within the last four days, homes of an estimated 23,000 villages have been razed down in the Upper Nile," said Mvume. "We further learned that the militias were moving towards the northern part of Upper Nile causing thousands of helpless villagers to flee their homes," he added.
Since early March, between 50,000 and 150,000 people have been displaced by a series of militia attacks in the Upper Nile area known as the Shilluk Kingdom. Most of the displaced have moved to government garrison towns, the Nuba mountains, the Panaru area, a group of islands in the swampy area between the White Nile and Lol rivers, and northern Sudan. 
With sketchy information from the area and few humanitarian actors on the ground, the numbers and whereabouts of the displaced remains uncertain. Three international NGOs - Tearfund, VSF-Germany and World Vision - and the UN (except for the garrison town of Malakal) have had to pull out of the area. 
The Shilluk Kingdom area became destabilised after 25 October 2003, when Dr Lam Akol Ajawin, the leader of the government-allied Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-United (SPLM/A-U), re-defected to the mainstream SPLM/A. Not all of Akol's forces were happy with the move, resulting in an internal split in the SPLM/A-U.
In early March 2004, fighting erupted when pro-government militias began attacking villages along the White Nile and Bahr al-Ghazal rivers. According to the US-backed team monitoring attacks against civilians, the Civilian and Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT), this was an apparent attempt to re-establish control over areas in the vacuum created by Akol's re-defection.
AACC's president, Rev Dr Nyansako Ni Nku, urged the organisation's constituent national Christian councils throughout Africa to lobby their governments to act on the civil strife in Sudan and called upon the churches themselves to "prepare to render their support to rebuild Sudan" once a peace agreement was reached between the Khartoum government and the SPLM/A.
The government and the SPLM/A, which are continuing peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya, are considered to be closer to a comprehensive peace deal than ever before. On Monday both sides agreed to extend the peace talks for an additional week.
AACC's peace initiatives in Sudan date back to 1972 when, together with the World Coulcil of Churches, they helped broker the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement between northern and southern Sudan. That deal gave Sudan a 10-year interlude of peace.

A number of conflicts in the lakes area of Bahr al-Ghazal, southern Sudan, escalated this year in advance of a likely peace agreement between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), according to an NGO organising peace initiatives in the region. 
"In February and March everything escalated... There is a general feeling that people have to settle scores before a peace deal," said Keer Bol Weet, a community development officer with Pact Kenya, "because after Anyanya I [the rebels who launched Sudan's first civil war which ended in 1972] there was a general amnesty for everyone." 
The government and the SPLM/A, which are continuing peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya, are considered to be closer to a comprehensive peace deal than ever before. On Monday both sides agreed to extend the peace talks for an additional week. 
Since February this year, thousands of people had been displaced by a series of concurrent conflicts between different ethnic groups and sub-groups in the seven counties of lakes: Rumbek, Cheibet, Tonj South, Tonj North, Tonj East, Yirol, Aweirial and Mvolo, Bol told IRIN. It was unclear how many had been killed, wounded and subjected to looting. 
The impact of the various conflicts had led to increased banditry around Rumbek, to the extent that aid agencies were unable to travel freely and conduct their work, he said. 
According to Bol, part of the problem was the proliferation of small arms in the region, which civilians had either bought from the SPLM/A, received from the SPLM/A in the past to protect themselves during conflicts with the Nuer, or received from SPLM/A deserters. 
A second factor was the inadequacy of the local authorities to deal with the violence. "The situation is out of hand. Neither the local authorities nor the police or judiciary are able to deal with it," Bol said. "There is no judiciary, so people act with impunity." 
The few police present in the area were untrained, and were usually either elderly or wounded SPLA soldiers who were not up to the job, he added. 
Local conflicts - which tend to manifest themselves along ethnic lines - over access to grazing land, resources and cattle are nothing new to southern Sudan. In Cheibet and Rumbek counties, feuds between the Dinka Ngok and Dinka Agar over cattle raiding had escalated in April, leading to thousands of displaced and unprecedented looting, a source from a local NGO, Diakonie, told IRIN. 
An inter-agency rapid assessment by humanitarian agencies had revealed that on 6 April and 7 April, the Dinka Agar from Rumbek had raided two payams (administrative units) in Cheibet, looting villages of food, seeds and property. "The area was completely cleaned out," the source told IRIN. 
Four primary health-care units and a diocese were looted, and unknown numbers killed, he said. Village chiefs had reported that up to 50 villages had been looted, displacing up to 8,000 families to Rumbek, Cheibet, and Agangrial. He had personally seen between 4,000 and 5,000 IDPs and several bodies. 
Numbers of IDPs in the area are impossible to verify independently. 
A separate inter-agency assessment, conducted with the Sudanese authorities, reported that 8,000 people had been displaced in clashes between the Dinka Agar of Rumbek and the Dinka Atuot of Yirol in mid-March after a number of clan killings. Attacks, counterattacks and fear of retaliation had led to a full-scale war between the two communities, resulting in killings and looting, said a draft report. 
Houses were not destroyed or burned, but food reserves and household property were looted, it said. "The trust and neighbourliness developed over decades" had been shattered in a few days of mayhem. "To ensure resumption of a peaceful coexistence, a lot needs to be done to not only punish the perpetrators but also compensate the victims," it continued. 
Many other incidences of escalated fighting between different clans and ethnic groups, both pastoralist and non-pastoralist, have also been reported this year. 
Between May and June, Pact Kenya is organising a series of nine peace meetings in the region to bring the various groups together in an initiative called the "Lakes subregion rapid response". 
According to Pact, a number of key steps need to be taken to avert future violence, said Bol. "You need to establish proper police, proper prisons, and to strengthen the judiciary in terms of availability and quality." 
At community level, chiefs' positions, which had been eroded by the presence of arms in the area, as well as competition with payam administrators and judges, also had to be strengthened, he said. 
Local peace committees needed means of travel - such as bicycles - to areas of conflict to monitor developing situations on the ground. The committees had also requested the setting up of special courts, with neutral judges from outside areas, he added, which would have to be established and then supported with food and stationery. 
SPLM/A forces sent to the areas to stem the violence had become part of the problem in that they looted food from local people, Bol added. Four or five Agar had already been killed by forces around Rumbek in clashes of this nature, he said.

The US government has called on Sudan to allow aid workers into the war-torn western region of Darfur, where it said aid was being effectively blocked by bureaucracy. 
"By delaying access to humanitarian relief organisations and the international community, the government of Sudan is preventing assistance from reaching their own citizens, many of whom are in desperate need," the US State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, told reporters on Tuesday. 
He said US aid workers were continuing to have problems getting into Darfur, currently considered to be the scene of the world's worst humanitarian crisis. "The government has continued to play games with travel permits while the humanitarian situation in Darfur has deteriorated," he said. Three-day permits had been issued to some US aid workers, but after the three days had expired, he added. 
Three levels of bureaucracy have to be surmounted before staff can reach their projects, leading to weeks of delay, according to Roger Winter, the assistant director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID): Firstly, NGO workers have to obtain visas to enter Sudan; secondly, they have to obtain travel permits, which are frequently delayed or denied; thirdly, aid workers need daily travel permits to leave the regional capitals to visit project sites. 
The government also "frequently impounds vehicles and holds them for months when they are urgently needed for emergency operations", Winter told the US Committee on International Relations on 6 May. 
"They [the government] say we want to help the people in Darfur," said Boucher. "But their actions tend to belie that statement." 
"We're deeply disturbed by the failure of the government of Sudan to provide free and unfettered access to Darfur to all humanitarian aid agencies, and we call on the government of Sudan to suspend, entirely, the requirement for such permits for the duration of the crisis in Darfur." 
The government of Sudan has said it is keen to find a solution to the conflict in Darfur, and repeatedly denied allegations of ethnic cleansing of non-Arabs and a scorched-earth policy. 
Just last week, a statement issued on 12 May by the Sudanese foreign ministry said: "The government has reiterated its keenness to achieve a lasting solution to the problem of Darfur, as well as normalisation of the situation and maintaining stability there." 
In February, President Umar Hasan al-Bashir declared victory over the Darfur-based rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, promising to unlock humanitarian access to the region. He announced "a plan to alleviate the suffering of displaced persons and others affected by the recent conflict", which would be "enforced immediately", as well as "unfettered access to humanitarian aid" from national and international NGOs via a series of "safe corridors". 
The war continued, and the promises regarding access never came to fruition, relief workers said. The International Crisis Group think-tank said this week that at least 100,000 people in Darfur would die of hunger and disease as a direct result of the conflict, while USAID is predicting that hundreds of thousands may die. 
As fighting and militia attacks in Darfur continue, despite a humanitarian ceasefire signed by the parties on 8 April, the Sudanese government has said fewer NGOs would be permitted to operate in the region. On Sunday, NGOs in Darfur were accused of partiality during a press conference in Khartoum held by Interior Minister Abd al-Rahim Husayn and Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid. For this reason, "the authorities will be careful in permitting such NGOs to operate in Darfur," Hamid was quoted as saying. 
The UN reported this week that the government had specifically accused two NGOS of supporting rebels, and deported a senior staff member from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who was coordinating the aid response in southern Darfur. 
The delaying of aid "called into question the commitment of the government of Sudan and their concern for the wellbeing of Sudanese citizens," said Boucher. 
In a separate development, on Tuesday the US took Sudan off its list of countries deemed uncooperative in the war against terrorism, but kept it on a list of "state sponsors of terrorism". Boucher said Sudan had taken a number of positive steps on cooperation against terrorism over the past few years, but remained on the state terrorism list because of the presence of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Sudan, "and some other concerns". 
He cautioned that even if ongoing peace talks between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army succeeded, Sudan should not expect "a significant flow" of aid or assistance until "their [government's] behaviour in Darfur has changed". 
Five countries were not cooperating fully with US anti-terrorism efforts, said the State Department website: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Syria. The sale or licence for export of any defence articles or services were therefore prohibited until 2005, it added.

While Kenyan mediators announced that the South Sudan conflict is entering its final phase, the protagonists of another war, that started last year in the remote western region of Darfur, threatened to extend the fighting to other zones of the nation if they are not included in the peace accord due to be signed in a few days in Naivasha (Kenya) between the Sudan government and rebels of the South. “Any accord that excludes us will never be able to bring real peace”, stated today to the Sudanese ‘Al-Hayat’ newspaper Abdel Wahed Mohammad Ahmad Nour, head of the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement), referring to the possible accord between the Islamic government of Khartoum and the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), a group that has combated fro the past two decades for the independence of South Sudan inhabited by black Christians and Animists. “WE will extend our military operations all the way to Kordofan (Central Sudan), Khartoum and the eastern zones of the nation”, underlined Nour, depicting a scenario of a total encircling of the Sudanese capital. The SLA-M leader then accused the government of violating a cease-fire undersigned last month: “The government continues bombing civilian targets from the sky, while its militias torch villages, killing and committing all types of violence against the civilians”, added Nour, defining what is occurring in Darfur as “a carefully planned and organised ethnic cleansing by the government”. Since February 2003 the SLA-M and smaller JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) rose in arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, accused of neglecting Darfur, because prevalently inhabited by blacks and of financing the militias of Arab thugs (known as Janjaweed) that for years have caused death and destruction in this part of Sudan, theatre also according to local UN representatives to a “new genocide”. In a little over 12 months of fighting, the war in Darfur has already resulted in the internal displacement of a million, 130,000 refugees (all in neighbouring Chad) and at least 10,000 victims, base don the most reliable estimates. A humanitarian crisis of critical proportions being followed very closely over the past months by the United Nations and various international humanitarian groups. In a press conference held on Sunday evening some NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) were accused of aiding the rebels of Darfur in their battle. The Ministers of Internal and Humanitarian Affairs of the Sudanese government did not provide any names, but underlined that some NGO’s “utilised humanitarian operations as a cover-up for their secret agendas and there is proof of their past support of the rebellion”. 

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

An estimated 100,000 people are at risk of dying from malnutrition and disease in Sudan's western region of Darfur, as a direct result of the ongoing conflict there, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank.
"In the best-case scenario, 'only' 100,000 people are expected to die in Darfur from disease and malnutrition in the coming months; sadly, there is little reason for even this desperate optimism," ICG said in an appeal entitled: "End the slaughter and starvation in western Sudan", launched on Sunday. 
The grim reality was that even if the April ceasefire between the government of Sudan and the region's two rebel groups was respected, 100,000 people would perish due to the "targeted destruction of water sites and food stores by government-aligned forces throughout the region", ICG continued.
The numbers already killed by fighting, malnutrition and disease are unknown, but were estimated by the outgoing Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan to be at least 10,000 by the end of March. 

Ongoing war 

Since the ceasefire signed between the government and the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on 8 April, there have been numerous reports of violations reported by the UN and other sources, including fighting and attacks on civilians by Arab government-allied militias known as the Janjawid. 

(See http://www.unsudanig.org/Emergencies/Darfur/index.htm for latest UN updates from Darfur)
There is currently no international monitoring mechanism in place.
Vast swathes of fertile farmland have been burned and depopulated of their non-Arab inhabitants - who are accused of harbouring rebels - by the Janjawid since August 2003, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). "With rare exceptions, the countryside is now emptied of its original Masalit and Fur inhabitants," said the watchdog in a campaign entitled "Help end ethnic cleansing in Darfur" launched on 7 May. 
Anything that could sustain life - food, livestock, wells, blankets and clothing - had been looted or destroyed, it added. "Villages have been torched, not randomly, but systematically - often not once, but twice."
Most of the displaced, who number over one million, have been forced into urban areas, where they remain virtual prisoners, as they are vulnerable to attack if they leave the settlements, according to a US Agency for International Development (USAID) emergency fact sheet dated 14 May. Unable to return to their farms to cultivate, they are missing the annual planting season, which ends in late May or early June when the rains begin.
The consequences of no harvest next November, plus the limited capacity of aid agencies to operate in Darfur, could be catastrophic, say humanitarian workers. Roger Winter, the USAID assistant director, predicted this month that once the rainy season begins, 30 percent of the affected population could die over the next nine months. 
The UN has increased its estimate of conflict-affected people in Darfur from 1.1 million in April to two million this month.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese foreign minister, Mustafa Uthman Isma'il, reportedly said on Friday that the pro-government militias could not be disarmed so long as the rebels continued fighting. "Those who want us to interrupt the actions of the militias now must understand that this is not possible," he was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse (AFP). "They forget that there is a rebellion going on and [the rebels] carry arms and threaten the tribes."
The Sudanese government has repeatedly contested the allegations of ethnic cleansing and scorched-earth policy depicted in various high-level reports from the UN, HRW, Amnesty International, the ICG and others over recent weeks. > 
Just last week, a statement issued on 12 May by the Sudanese foreign ministry said: "The government has reiterated its keenness to achieve a lasting solution to the problem of Darfur, as well as normalisation of the situation and maintaining stability there."

The politics of aid 

Since the conflict erupted in Darfur in February 2003, bureaucratic problems have led to humanitarian actors waiting for weeks and sometimes months just to enter the region. 
Three levels of bureaucracy have to be surmounted before staff can reach their projects, leading to weeks of delay, according to Roger Winter, the USAID assistant director: Firstly, NGO workers have to obtain visas to enter Sudan; secondly, they have to obtain travel permits, which are frequently delayed or denied; thirdly, aid workers need daily travel permits to leave the regional capitals to visit project sites. 
The government also "frequently impounds vehicles and holds them for months when they are urgently needed for emergency operations", he told the US Committee on International Relations on 6 May.
The denial of access over many months had made NGOs fearful of speaking out, because they were afraid of losing access altogether, he added, as well as preventing them from building up their own capacity to respond effectively to the humanitarian crisis. 
At a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Sunday, Interior Minister Abd al-Rahim Husayn and Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid announced the deployment of a new police force to the region, but added that fewer NGOS would be allowed to operate there. They accused some of the "hundreds of NGOs" operating in Darfur region of using "humanitarian operations as a cover for carrying out a hidden agenda" and supporting the rebellion. For this reason, "the authorities will be careful in permitting such NGOs to operate in Darfur," Hamid was quoted as saying by AFP.
Just this week, the UN reported that a senior staff member from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - whose role was to coordinate the aid response - had been deported from southern Darfur. "This is unacceptable treatment for UN staff," said a report. 
Making matters even worse, the limited aid that is available is often being turned away. 
The SLA has declared several times in recent weeks that it will refuse any aid delivered to areas under its control that originated in government territory, where most of the NGOs and UN agencies have their bases. It said it would deny the government any opportunity to use humanitarian relief for its own benefit, which included bringing troops, ammunition, spies, and propaganda into SLA areas, discrediting the SLA on the ground, or making the civilian populations reliant on the government.
Ongoing Janjawid attacks have also made the IDPs too scared to accept any aid. IDPs' had consistently reported the dilemma they faced to UN officials, said a report on 16 May. "Whether to refuse the food and starve, or receive assistance and subject themselves to Janjawid predatory attacks."

Forcible returns 

An increasing number of reports are being received of attempts to coerce IDPs in Darfur to return to their homes and farms. The UN reported that "government pressure for involuntary relocation and return resonates throughout field reports". 
On the one hand traditional elders were being pressured or persuaded into cooperation or else replaced, the UN said. "On the other hand, humanitarian assistance is manipulated to lure the population into relocation and return under the conditions of continued insecurity." 
The government's pilot return village in Habilah Karnavi was now populated with 65 people, attracted by the prospect of free food, it added.
On three occasions, the authorities had reportedly gone to IDPs sites in Western Darfur to tell people that if they did not return to their homes, the international community would stop delivering aid, a source told IRIN. 
Nevertheless, people were refusing to move. The British ambassador visiting IDPs had received a uniform answer to the question he posed regarding return, the UN reported: They would return when the Janjawid were disarmed and when security was in place. 
A plan of return developed by local authorities in Western Darfur has now been abandoned.

Action needed immediately

Human Rights groups and think-tanks are urging decisive action from both the UN and the US to halt the deaths, that may include force. "Whatever you want to call what's going on in Darfur, the time for forceful outside intervention is unmistakably approaching," said ICG in its appeal.
As a first step, the Security Council must urgently pass a resolution that includes five points, according to ICG: first, it must condemn what has been happening and demand that it stop; second it must impose an arms embargo, insist that Khartoum disarm the Janjawid and demand respect for the humanitarian ceasefire; third the resolution must call for the safe return of the IDPs; fourth it should authorise a high-level team to investigate the war crimes and crimes against humanity; fifth it should warn Khartoum unambiguously that force may be used. 
"Despite being too late to stop the ethnic-cleansing campaign, the international community still has a chance to prevent a major famine from killing hundreds of thousands more Darfurians," warned John Prendergast, co-director of the ICG Africa programme, in a testimony this month to the US Committee on International Relations.
The US Committee for Refugees said last week that the US government, in particular, must take action on Darfur. "Otherwise hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children may die, and President Bush may be found wanting in the eyes of history for failing to rise to the awful spectre of this genocide in the making," said Lavinia Lemon, its executive director. 
"His leadership and political will are needed now," she stressed.

The Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Kofi Annan, has written to the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan el Beshir, calling on the government to disarm the militias responsible for the violence against the civilian population in the remote western region of Darfur, which has been the scene of a conflict for over a year. The news comes from UN sources, who say that in his letter Annan also asked the Sudanese Head of State to respect the humanitarian ceasefire agreed with the rebels last month and to grant international aid workers greater access to the zone. Annan went on to stress the need to deploy the African Union (AU) observers to the region as quickly as possible and the importance of pursuing a negotiated end to the crisis. Two rebel groups – SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement) and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) – took up arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, which it accuses of neglecting Darfur, as the region is inhabited mostly by black people, and of funding militias of Arab predators (known as Janjaweed), who have tormented this part of Sudan for years, where some sources – including local UN staff – claim that a “new genocide” is underway. In just over 12 months, the fighting in Darfur is thought to have claimed tens of thousands of lives (10,000 according to the most reliable estimates), while there are a million internally displaced people and 130,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad.

The Arabic-speaking Janjawid militia groups fighting alongside Sudanese government forces against rebels in Sudan's western Darfur province have been blamed for a series of ceasefire violations within Darfur and have now begun terrorising villages across the border in eastern Chad. 
Diplomats and Chadian government officials say these cattle raiders equipped by the Sudanese government with modern weaponry need to be reigned in quickly if rapidly souring relations between the desert neighbours are to be salvaged. 
However, they question how much control Khartoum has over these nomadic horsemen and whether the Sudanese government has the will or the capability to bring them back under government control. 
"Either the Sudanese government does not control the militia and requests international assistance to neutralise the militia and secure the border, or they could do it themselves, but just don't want to," Ahmad Allami, President Idriss Deby's official spokesman, told IRIN. 
"Now, there is the feeling that Sudan does not have control over the militia and needs assistance," he continued. 
"I think Khartoum has been overwhelmed by the situation of the militia," one European diplomat in the Chadian capital told IRIN. "They gave weapons to people they do not control and they do not really want to control them either as they might still need them in the future," he added. 
The United Nations is also growing increasingly worried about the activities of the Janjawid. 
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sent a letter to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Thursday urging him to disarm the militias, whose attacks on civilians in Western Darfur have sent more than 800,000 people fleeing from their villages, many of them across the border into Chad. 
Bertrand Ramcharan, the acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters after briefing the Security Council in early May: "One, there is a reign of terror in this area. Two, there is a scorched earth policy. Three, there are repeated war crimes and crimes against humanity. And four, this is taking place before our very eyes." 
The scale and frequency of Janjawid incursions into Chad appears to be increasing, threatening the safety of more than 110,000 refugees from Darfur who have sought shelter there and threatening to end Chadian government's official neutrality in the conflict. 
So far Chad has been acting as a mediator between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, the two rebel groups fighting against it in Darfur. 
Last month, Chadian officials persuaded the two sides to sign up to a 45-day humanitarian truce at peace talks in N'djamena. But the rebels have accused Khartoum and its Janjawid allies of repeated ceasefire violations and African Union ceasefire monitoring team has yet to be deployed on the ground. 
The truce was supposed to allow immediate access by relief agencies to the war-affected population of Darfur, but reports of regular ceasefire violations and a growing number of cross-border incidents could endanger its renewal when it expires on 20 May. 
Chad's acting Defence Minister, Emmanuel Nadingar, told reporters last week that on 5 May, the Chadian army clashed with a raiding party of Janjawid 25 km inside Chadian territory and killed 60 of them. 
One Chadian soldier was killed and seven others were wounded in the battle, he added. 
It was the most deadly incident to have been reported between Chadian and Sudanese forces since the Darfur rebellion began in February last year. 
"Once more the intervention of our forces was necessary to push them back," Nadingar said. 
"We are in such a situation that we fear our patience could have limits," he added. 
One captured Janjaweed fighter who was presented to the press in Chad this week confirmed fears that the militia were operating on their own initiative without necessarily following orders from Khartoum. 
"Nobody sent us to Chad," said Abakora Abbo Sakhairoun, who identified himself as a Janjawid fighter captured by the Chadian army. 
"The Sudanese government equipped us with light weapons - kalachnikovs and bazookas - to fight the rebels in Darfur," he said as he faced the cameras dressed completely in white. "But we take advantage of this to steal cattle in Chad, though we perfectly know that it is not our mission." 
Diplomats told IRIN that there was nothing new about tribal clashes between nomads of Arabic extraction and village farmers belonging to local African tribes in Darfur, but these days they have become much more deadly because the raiders were better armed. 
"The Janjawid have kept their traditional values and ways of living. They do the same as they used to: they steal to get. Only this time, their weapons are more sophisticated," the diplomat, who asked not to be named, told IRIN. 
The Janjawid, whose name means "armed horsemen" in Arabic, are nomadic herders of livestock who traditionally carried knives and cutlasses. However, since the Darfur rebellion broke out last year, the Sudanese government has furnished them with powerful automatic weapons and grenade launchers. 
Human rights groups and international humanitarian organisations have repeatedly accused the Sudanese government of using the Janjawid to pursue a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the black Muslim communities of Darfur who do not use Arabic as their first language. 
In particular they have accused them of waging war against the Zagawa, Fur and Masaalit ethnic communities, which straddle the frontier with Chad. 
Chadian President Idriss Deby is himself a member of the Zagawa tribe and he is growing increasingly exasperated at the political violence in Darfur which is now spilling over into his own country. 
Besides Janjawid raids, the Chadian authorities also complain about Sudanese military helicopters straying across the border. 
"Sudan must control its armed militia and Chad will do its utmost to protect its population," he warned, during a visit to Congo-Brazzaville last week. 
However, the government of Sudan has strongly denied allegations of ethnic cleansing. It maintains that it is simply fighting a rebellion in its eastern territories which must be suppressed.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has written to Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir urging him to disarm the militia whose attacks on civilians in the western region of Darfur have led to a grave humanitarian crisis.
The text of the humanitarian ceasefire agreement reached in April between the government and the two rebel groups fighting in Darfur, says Khartoum "shall commit itself to neutralize the armed militias".
Annan also called on Bashir to improve the access of humanitarian workers to tens of thousands of people who have been uprooted from their homes.
The Darfur conflict erupted in early 2003 and pits the Sudanese government and militias allied to it against two armed rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement, that accuse Khartoum of marginalising the Darfur region. It has displaced more than a million people, as well as an estimated 110,000 refugees who have fled to neighbouring Chad.
In his letter, Annan asked Bashir to maintain the humanitarian ceasefire signed between the combatants on 8 April, and to facilitate the early deployment of African Union (AU) observers throughout the area, while negotiating a political settlement to the crisis, said a statement. 
Earlier this month, the AU sent a mission to consult with the Sudanese government, the SLA and JEM, as well as with UN agencies and NGOs, about establishing a ceasefire commission.
According to the ceasefire agreement signed in Ndjamena, the Chadian capital, the commission shall be involved in "planning, verifying and ensuring the implementation of the rules and provisions of the ceasefire [and] defining the routes for the movement of forces in order to reduce the risks of incidents".
The commission is also mandated with "receiving, verifying, analysing and judging complaints related to the possible violations of the ceasefire [and] developing adequate measures to guard against such incidents".
Meanwhile, the Office of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan has reported that government troops and SLA fighters have engaged in a number of clashes in Northern Darfur and that Borno was now under the control of rebel forces. Vehicles carrying hundreds of SLA forces were seen in the vicinity of Tawila (about 50 km southwest of Al-
It said that clashes between government and rebel forces had also been reported in Korma (about 50 km northwest of Al-Fashir) and that government forces had secured their positions in the area.
In Southern Darfur, pro-government Janjawid militias had reportedly stopped a private car carrying five teachers and a displaced woman, whom they molested and robbed before freeing, said the report. It also noted that government helicopters had resumed activity over Nyala, but the exact purpose of the flights remained unknown.

An increasing number of southern Sudanese who were displaced to northern Sudan by decades of war are returning south in advance of a peace agreement, rebel officials say.
According to the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SRRC), the humanitarian wing of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), between January and March 2004 over 108,000 southerners returned to areas of Bahr al-Ghazal. These comprised 4,700 to Abyei, over 8,000 to Aweil East, 44,400 to Aweil North, over 28,000 to Aweil West and 23,500 to Twic County. 
"Significant IDP [internally displaced person] returns are already a reality in northern Bahr al-Ghazal," said an SRRC report made available to IRIN on Thursday. "People are not waiting for peace signatures."
The numbers of returnees had been increasing steadily since the beginning of 2004, with 20,000 people returning to Aweil North in March, compared with 6,000 in January, the SRRC commissioner, Elijah Malok, reported. The returnees had come from Khartoum, other cities in northern Sudan, rural areas and camps for displaced people in Darfur.
Only those who had returned in lorries and carts through main entry points had been registered, Malok reported, noting that "large movements on foot were unrecorded". 
Malok was a member of an SPLM/A-UN fact-finding mission to the region in late April.
Sudan has between 3 million and 4 million displaced,  many of whom fled for their lives from conflict, while many others - especially those in and around the capital, Khartoum - are economic migrants. With no reliable population statistics available for Sudan as a whole, and certainly no accurate statistics on the numbers of IDPs, or whether and when they may choose to return, much of the necessary planning for their return has been based on assumptions. 
The SRRC figures are not independently verifiable. 
The SRRC estimates that in the next six months alone, and despite the rainy season, over 200,000 more people could return to southern Sudan through northern Bahr al-Ghazal, which could lead to a humanitarian crisis. "Current and routine programming responses by the authorities and agencies are inadequate," said Malok. "They need to be rapidly accelerated and matched by a corresponding early donor commitment if current return movements are to be dignified and sustainable, and to avoid a possible disaster in the next six months."
Local authorities felt there had been "a plethora of assessments and planning trips" over recent months, and were keen to see a rapid upscaling of agency activities, the report said. "Whilst SRRC and UN planning has progressed, the reality in terms of action in the areas of the return is disappointing and worrying," it continued.
The SRRC said it was essential to immediately improve services in the areas to which the returnees were moving, including water availability, health services, non-food items and food support. Many of the returnees had little or no education or had been educated in Arabic, necessitating improved education services in English, it added.
While UN agencies and NGOs are trying to prepare themselves for the aftermath of a peace deal in Sudan, and some donors are granting project funding for areas in advance of returnees moving there, in general, funding for development of the south has been slow. 
Ben Parker, the spokesman for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, told IRIN there was a "wait-and-see posture" on the part of many donors who were reluctant to pledge money for long-term projects until a comprehensive peace deal had been signed by the government and the SPLM/A.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) on Tuesday announced a new five-year $34 million Health Transformation Programme to improve health in southern Sudan. 
The programme would enhance health by improving maternal and child health through routine immunisations, polio eradication, growth monitoring, and diarrhoea and pneumonia care, said a press release. Core activities would include the rehabilitation of health worker training institutes, training of county medical officers and community based health workers, the provision of high quality drugs and other medical interventions, the expansion of routine immunisation, and access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation. 
"This major investment will apply cross-cutting approaches to the health sector, including health systems strengthening, human resources development with a special focus on women and children to break the vicious cycle of poverty, malnutrition and infectious diseases, so mothers and children are healthier and families are better able to feed, clothe, and educate their children," said USAID Assistant Administrator for Global Health, Dr Anne Peterson. 
The money would also attempt to control and reduce the infection rates of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria by establishing an epidemiological training programme for health technicians, and develop an epidemiological surveillance system, said USAID. 
Many of the most common illnesses in southern Sudan are easily preventable and treatable, if people could only access quality health care. Malaria is the most common illness diagnosed by health workers, followed by diarrhoeal infections, respiratory ailments, intestinal parasites, eye and skin diseases and sexually transmitted diseases. 
Others include Guinea worm, trachoma, onchocerciasis, elephantiasis, sleeping sickness, kala-azar, TB, and leprosy. 
According to the UN, the south has only about 1,500 hospital beds for the some eight million people in the rebel-controlled areas of Equatoria, Bahr al-Ghazal, Upper Nile, the Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile. Routine immunisations and preventative health care are also poorly supported by local Sudanese populations, who have to concern themselves with the basic needs in life, including finding food, clothing and shelter. 
In anticipation of a peace settlement between the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), USAID said it had begun to shift its emphasis from providing humanitarian and emergency relief to working with the SPLM/A on "revitalising and rebuilding" southern Sudan. 
The new programme would begin to shift its focus from emergency health-care delivery to building "a sustainable health-care system managed and operated by Sudanese", focusing on Eastern and Western Equatoria, Upper Nile, southern Blue Nile, Bahr al-Ghazal and the Nuba Mountains, it said. 
Ben Parker, the spokesman for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, told IRIN there was a general shift in thinking among agencies and donors, as they reviewed their operations in preparation for supporting an embryonic government of southern Sudan. NGOs and the UN were being encouraged to maximise their coordination efforts with the SPLM/A, as well as with local authorities, he said, as it was essential to build up national capacity and institutions. The various bodies of the SPLM/A were in turn "finding their feet" and exerting more authority. 
Nevertheless there was a "wait-and-see posture" on the part of many donors who were reluctant to pledge money for long-term projects until a comprehensive peace deal had been signed by both sides, he added. 
According to a UN Children's Fund report released in 2003 (Overview of the Health Situation in Sudan), there are about 66 agencies involved in health provision to southern Sudan - 19 of which are Sudanese agencies - but the spread of their services is unequal. 
Equatoria has 26 percent of the population and 48 percent of the facilities, while Bahr al-Ghazal has 49 percent of the population and only 21 percent of the facilities. In the rebel-controlled areas of southern Blue Nile there are only four agencies operating and in the Nuba Mountains only three.

Peace negotiations between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) were experiencing "some difficulties" on Tuesday, a rebel spokesman told IRIN.
The details of power-sharing in the two of the disputed areas - the Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile - as well as at national level, had yet to be agreed on, said Yasir Arman, an SPLM/A spokesman. 
In the disputed areas, the government had offered the SPLM/A forty percent of parliamentary seats and executive posts, and in the national government 28 percent, he said. Neither of these figures were acceptable: "The government is offering us 28 percent; we are asking for 38 percent, based on a population census of southern Sudan, the Nuba mountains and the southern Blue Nile."
IRIN was unable to obtain a comment from the Sudanese government.
Arman said Sudanese Vice-President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha and SPLM/A Chairman Dr John Garang were continuing to hold talks in Naivasha, Kenya on Tuesday, while a separate committee was continuing to work on the power-sharing details. "We think these details should not have to keep the agreement hostage," said Arman. "If we cannot resolve the issues, we could ask for further arbitration."
On 7 May spokespersons on both sides said protocols on power-sharing, including in the three disputed areas of Abyei, southern Blue Nile and the Nuba mountains, and the legal status of the capital, Khartoum, could be signed within days. Both sides had agreed that Islamic shari'ah law would continue to apply in the capital, Khartoum, "with guarantees to non-Muslims that their religious rights will not be affected", a source told IRIN.
According to Samson Kwaje, another SPLM/A spokesman, once the protocols are signed, the parties will take a break "of two to three weeks" to allow for time "to bring together all the earlier agreements into a comprehensive peace agreement". 
Six protocols and two annexes will make up a comprehensive peace agreement. These are the Machakos protocol governing a referendum on secession for the south after a six-year interim period, which was signed in July 2002; a protocol on security arrangements during the interim, signed in September 2003; and another on wealth-sharing concluded in December 2003.
Protocols on the status of Abyei, the three disputed areas and on power-sharing and two annexes governing the implementation of security arrangements and international guarantees on monitoring the ceasefire have yet to be signed.

The Sudanese government has said it is determined to find a lasting solution to the conflict in the country's western Darfur region, where alleged violations of human rights have prompted widespread criticism of the authorities in Khartoum.
A statement issued on Wednesday by the Sudanese foreign ministry said: "The government has reiterated its keenness to achieve a lasting solution to the problem of Darfur, as well as normalisation of the situation and maintaining stability there."
The Sudanese authorities, it added, had "followed the deliberations of the [United Nations] Security Council regarding the issue of Darfur, and agreed with the contents of the reports presented by World Food Programme Executive Director James Morris and acting UN Human Rights Commissioner Bertrand Ramcharand, which stated that the rebels were the first party which instigated the crisis of Darfur".
On 7 May, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) urged Sudan to stem human rights abuses in Darfur, where government troops and allied militias have been accused of perpetrating atrocities against civilians during military operations against insurgents.
The UNHCHR said in a report that "a disturbing pattern of disregard for basic principles of human rights and humanitarian law" had occurred in Darfur. The report followed a visit by a UNHCHR team to Darfur and neighbouring Chad in April.
The government, however, said the report had been "based on hearsay, claims and  presumptions". The UNHCHR team, it added, had "failed to show the basic facts that the government was compelled after the aggravation of the rebellion to appeal on all the citizens to assist the Armed Forces to contain the violence and destructive actions".
"As for the claims on rape and sexual attacks, the government affirmed that they are categorically rejected and that they were basically contradicting with the values and morals of the Sudanese society," the statement added.
The UNHCHR report said both the Sudanese armed forces and the Janjawid militia were responsible for the atrocities in Darfur, where, it added, civilians had been indiscriminately attacked and subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence.
Displaced people who had fled to Chad told the team that Sudanese government military aircraft had bombed villages while the Janjawid had raided civilian areas, killing people as they pillaged and destroyed property.
"The inevitable consequence of the killings, rape, burning and looting of villages has been massive displacement within the Sudan and across the border to Chad. These policies appear to be directly aimed at preventing the villagers from returning to their homes or being in a position to provide any support to the rebels," the report said.
The conflict in Darfur erupted in early 2003 and pits the Sudanese government and militias allied to it against two armed rebel groups that accuse Khartoum of marginalising the Darfur region. The conflict has displaced more than a million people, including an estimated 110,000 refugees who have fled to Chad.
The UNHCHR demanded that the Sudanese government "unequivocally condemn all actions and crimes committed by the Janjawid and ensure that all militias are immediately disarmed and disbanded".
It urged the Sudanese government to investigate reported violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and bring the perpetrators to justice. The UNHCHR also recommended that an international commission of inquiry be set up to examine the problems in Darfur.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has accused the Sudanese government of flagrant human rights violations in Darfur, and urged the international community to help remedy the situation. It said in its latest report on Sudan that the Security Council, in particular, should take urgent measures to ensure the protection of civilians and provision of relief aid to them.

Ongoing insecurity in the Shilluk Kingdom area of Upper Nile, southern Sudan, is threatening food security as tens of thousands of displaced people may be unable to cultivate, according to Norwegian People's Aid (NPA). 
"The security situation in Shilluk Kingdom will be the major determinant factor to either allow the displaced households to return to original areas and begin cultivation or not," said NPA in an assessment report. "Unfortunately, improved security in the Shilluk Kingdom is not foreseen in the coming months, and even if it happens, it will take time for people to return to their home areas and construct homes again."
NPA, the only NGO to have conducted a needs assessment in the southern part of the Shilluk Kingdom since militias began attacking the area in March, said it was likely that this year's cultivation season - from May to November - would be lost. "If no assistance is forthcoming, the assessment team confirms that a substantial crisis is ahead. The deteriorating situation shows no sign of abating," said NPA.
While NPA found no evidence of malnutrition in Popwojo (Tonga County) and Oriny (Fashoda County), it said the situation could change if there was no concerted effort on the part of NGOs and donors. "From mid-May onwards, the severity of the food insecurity will increase and large numbers of the displaced population will run a continually high risk of inability to meet food needs."
Livestock, food stocks and household goods, fishing gear, bedding and mosquito nets had all been taken or destroyed by the militias "to decimate the population", resulting in a 40 percent to 50 percent loss of its food economy, NPA reported. Currently, displaced families were living under trees and makeshift structures, surviving on fish and wild foods. 
Since early March, between 50,000 and 120,000 people have been displaced by a series of militia attacks in the Shilluk Kingdom, moving to government garrison towns, the Nuba mountains, the Panaru area, a group of islands in the swampy area between the White Nile and Lol rivers, and northern Sudan. 
With patchy information from the area and few humanitarian actors on the ground, the numbers and whereabouts of the displaced remains uncertain. Three international NGOs - Tearfund, VSF-Germany and World Vision - and the UN (except for the garrison town of Malakal) have had to pull out of the area. 
The Shilluk Kingdom area became destabilised after 25 October 2003, when Dr Lam Akol Ajawin, the leader of the government-allied Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-United (SPLM/A-U), re-defected to the mainstream SPLM/A. Not all of Akol's forces were happy with the move, resulting in an internal split in the SPLM/A-U.
In early March 2004, fighting erupted in earnest when pro-government militias began attacking and destroying villages along the White Nile and Bahr al-Ghazal rivers in an apparent attempt to re-establish control over areas in the vacuum created by Akol's re-defection, according to the US-backed team monitoring attacks against civilians, the Civilian and Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT).

“The conditions of the Sudanese refugees that fled in Chad from Darfur are so dramatic that famine and disease are seriously jeopardising the lives of tens of thousands of people”. This was the new alert launched by the MSF (Doctors Without Borders), denouncing serious risks faced by the Sudanese that over the past months have fled the war in Darfur, in West Sudan, where government forces – backed by Arab thugs known as ‘Janjaweed’ – are engaged in fighting with two local rebel movements. “The refugee camps are insufficient and overcrowded, there is a shortage of food and water and many refugees risk attacks by Sudanese militias trespassing the border”, denounced the MSF in a statement received by MISNA. Despite the dislocation over the past few months in Chad of groups of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission) and other international organisations to confront the emergency, “progress has been dramatically slow and the crisis is getting worse”, underlined the NGO. “Since January we have been launching the same appeal to the international community for concrete and fast initiatives in assistance of the refugees of Darfur”, stated Donatella Massai, MSF representative for operations in Chad. “It seems that this simple message went unheard and for this reason we repeat it louder”. If immediate action is not taken, warns the organisation “we risk facing an ulterior deterioration, particularly now that the rain season is beginning”. The rate of malnutrition, near the border between Chad and Sudan, is peaking by the week, while the provisioning of potable water is extremely problematic and thousands of refugees have no access to clean drinking water. One of the camps has only one latrine for 400 refugees, while international standards foresee a latrine every 20 people. The MSF also denounced that tens of thousand of refugees, not yet transferred from the border zone to camps further into Chad, “remain at high risk of attacks by Sudanese militias that often cross into Chad”. Based on UN estimates, since February of last year the conflict has claimed at least 10-thousand victims, causing some 120-130-thousand refugees (in Chad) and displacing hundreds of thousands (maybe even a million). “The sufferance of the people of Darfur - concludes Massai – should represent an absolute priority for the international humanitarian community”.

The rebels of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), the armed group protagonist against Khartoum of a twenty year conflict in South Sudan, in the past days claimed that 204 civilians were killed and many others injured in a military campaign launched in the Akobo zone, near the border with Ethiopia, by pro-government militias. The report was issued a few hours ago by SPLA representatives in Nairobi (Kenya), specifying that ground operations are being conducted by the SSLM (South Sudan Liberation Movement) backed by Khartoum armed forces, which are carrying out a precise strategy. According to George Garang, SPLA spokesman interviewed by the AFP news agency, it is “a government campaign for control of Akobo and other towns along the border with Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya before the signing of the peace accord”. Khartoum’s plan exposed by the SPLA spokesman also foresees the conquest of other locations, such as Yei, Kaya, Kajukeji, Nimle and Poye. However, for the moment there have been no independent confirmations on the reports of the fighting and victims of Akobo. MISNA sources contacted last night in Nairobi and in Lokichokio, where some 200 wounded were reportedly transported in the past days from Akobo, were not able to confirm the reports. The SPLA spokesman however underlined that there will not be a suspension of the peace talks underway for over a year in Kenya. In reality, the signing of a definitive accord between the SPLA and Khartoum, announced as imminent for months, has been repeatedly delayed since the end of 2003. New issue of dispute continue emerging each time mediators announce that an accord has been reached. The last point to be resolved, which optimists say is ‘nearly’ accomplished, regards the destiny of three central regions of the nation (Abyei, Nuba Mountains and south Blue Nile) on which both claim influence

Tens of thousands of displaced people in the Shilluk Kingdom area of Upper Nile, southern Sudan, are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to a Sudanese rebel leader.
Since early March, over 70,000 people had been displaced from their homes and over 24 Shilluk villages south and southwest of Malakal destroyed by "six militias affiliated with the Sudanese government", Dr Lam Akol Ajawin of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), told reporters in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Tuesday. 
Neimat Bilal, the press counsellor at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, said the "humanitarian crisis" in the area had resulted from a "tribal conflict". "We join Akol in appealing to the international community to give support to those people who have been victims of the tribal conflict," she said.
"There are no army troops in the area..those militia are not supported by the government," she added. 
According to Akol, the numbers killed in the attacks remained unclear as information was incomplete from many areas. "We think there are hundreds, but we are still compiling names. We want the international community to be aware in order to help the situation to stabilise the people who are there [in Shilluk] and attract back those who have gone to other areas," he added. 
Food crops were burned along with grass used for building homes to prevent people from moving back, he said. This, he added, had caused people to disperse in many directions, including the garrison town of Malakal, the Jabal Liri area of the Nuba mountains, the Panaru area and a group of islands in the swampy area between the White Nile and Lol rivers. 
People on the islands were surviving with no shelter and on a diet of water lilies, Akol said, as they had no nets or hooks to catch fish.
With patchy information from the area and no United Nations presence on the ground - except for Malakal - the numbers of internally displaced people in the Shilluk Kingdom remains uncertain. Sudanese churches, the UN and other relief agencies cite between 50,000 and 120,000, while an estimated 26,000 have been registered in Malakal town.
The Shilluk Kingdom area became destabilised after 25 October 2003, when Akol, the leader of the government-allied SPLM/A-United (SPLM/A-U), re-defected to the mainstream SPLM/A. Not all of Akol's forces were happy with the move, resulting in an internal split in the SPLM/A-U.
In early March 2004 fighting erupted in earnest when militias began attacking and destroying villages along the White Nile and Bahr al-Ghazal rivers in an apparent attempt to re-establish control over areas in the vacuum created by Akol's re-defection, according to the US-backed team monitoring attacks against civilians, the Civilian and Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT). 
The CPMT reported that in Mid-March, militia forces supported by Sudanese police and security forces from Malakal attacked the villages of Nyilwak (46 km southwest of Malakal) and Popwojo, burning and destroying them. The Verification and Monitoring Team, the monitoring body of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development peace process, has said it also found evidence of a "campaign of violence" by militias allied to the government. 
The Sudanese government denied involvement in clashes in the Shilluk Kingdom. In an official response to the CPMT report, the foreign ministry said Akol's forces had "terrified civilians" and interrupted the movement of river transport along the Nile. "He [Akol] also used to identify Nuer people as enemies, killing them, and took many steps towards waging civil war and ethnic dividing," it said. 
Akol on Tuesday warned that the attacks had stopped for now, but that fighting might flare up again, threatening the entire Sudanese peace process. "It is not a tribal conflict. It is a conflict between the government and the SPLM/A," he repeated. 
"We don't want to be the cause of any breakdown in talks, but at the same time we are also making it very clear that if the [ceasefire] agreement that people entered into is not respected, then the consequences will be very great," he added.

“The situation is catastrophic without security or stability”: this was how Sudan Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail defined the current situation in Darfur, the western region where clashes between government forces and local rebels have provoked a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions. Khartoum’s head of diplomacy however denied that a “genocide” is underway, instead suggested yesterday by Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds. It is very difficult to understand what is in reality occurring in the remote and practically isolated area, aside from a recent visit of a United Nations mission and the few present aid groups. The interim Defence Minister of neighbouring Chad yesterday denounced the ‘belligerent’ behaviour of Sudan, deploring new attacks by the Arab ‘Janjaweed’ militias, backed by Sudan armed forces. The Sudanese Foreign Minister, aside from denying the accusations, pointed a finger at supposed “international forces”, particularly US, adopting “a strategy aimed at developing wars in north, west and east Sudan, after that of the south”. Ismail then announced “an accord with the government of Chad for the creation of a joint force to impede border violations”. In denouncing a “foreign media campaign” – in reality proved by testimonies gathered by the UN experts in the past days, indicating serious human rights violations – the representative of the Islamic government stated that African peace forces are attended in Darfur, without providing ulterior details. Since February 2003 West Sudan is theatre to a conflict that – according to the UN – has so far claimed 10-thousand victims, causing the displacement of 7-800-thousand (over 1-million according to some sources) and around 130-thousand refugees, all in Chad. Two local armed movements rose against the central government, demanding major protection from violence of the Arab militants – that pillage villages and destroy crops particularly in the black communities of Arana, Marsalit and Fura – and major participation in the exploitation of oil resources controlled by the government; this last demand the same unleashing factor at the root of twenty years of conflict between the rebels of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) and Khartoum authorities in South Sudan.

The African Union (AU) has announced that it has sent a team of experts to the tormented Darfur region in western Sudan, where the 14-month conflict between local rebels and the government forces has created a serious humanitarian crisis, with thousands of dead, a million internally displaced people and 130,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad. The AU mission, which will spend nine days in Sudan, will assess the conditions for the possible deployment of observers to monitor the ceasefire, which was signed a month ago but has been repeatedly violated. The mission led by the pan-African organisation based in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa will also contain representatives of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and France. The team is also due to visit the refugee camps in Chad, as well as to meet with representatives of the Sudanese government and of the two armed groups that took up arms against Khartoum last February, accusing the Islamic authorities of neglecting the region and of supporting the ‘Janjaweed’, Arab predators who have tormented the black population in the area for years. A delegation from the Arab League has been in the region for a few days, where it is visiting towns in the three States that make up the Darfur region to assess the humanitarian needs of the local population. The Sudanese daily ‘Al-Ayam’ reports that the President of the Arab League Amr Moussa has already appealed to Arab countries to send emergency aid to Darfur; his appeal was reiterated by James Morris, the executive director of the Rome-Based WFP (World Food Programme), a few days ago

The government of Sudan is allegedly “deliberately starving” civilians at least in one city in the remote western region of Darfur, where a 14-month conflict has caused a serious humanitarian emergency. This is the claim made by the United Nations in a report carried by the French news agency ‘AFP’. “Numerous testimonies confirmed by observation missions currently underway point to a systematic and deliberate strategy to starve the population enacted by the government of Sudan and by its forces on the ground, especially through the persistent block of access to food,” reads the statement compiled following a visit by numerous United Nations humanitarian agencies to the city of Kailek, in south Darfur, on 25 April. “It seems clear that the armed men ‘guarding’ the displaced (the conflict has already displaced a million people, according to the United Nations) have generally prevented the inflow of food, also impeding civilians in their attempt to find staple food items in the forest”. It seems that the local authorities have forcibly prevented the displaced from leaving Kailek unless they pay money to the security forces. This is not all: in March, the ‘Janjaweed’ militias – the Arab predators who terrorise the local black population with support from the government army - took a load of food destined for civilians. According to the report, the situation in Kailek is dramatic: “Eight or nine children die from malnutrition every day,” it says. The UN document points up the total destruction by the Janjaweed and the government army of 23 villages inhabited by the Fur community in particular. These operations are allegedly part of a campaign to “clean” the Fur populations – a definition that echoes the accusations of ethnic cleansing already made by some UN officials. Furthermore, the report describes the sanitary, medical and humanitarian conditions of the displaced in the town of Tailek as “inhumane, deplorable and terrible”, adding that numerous civilians have reported sexual abuse. The situation registered by officials of the UN, UNICEF, WHO (World Health Organisation) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) in Kailek could be common to many of the places where those displaced by the fighting have been congregating for months. Humanitarian sources also highlight another serious risk: that the peasant farmers will not be able to plant their crops, thereby remaining without a harvest in the months to come. According to UN estimates, the conflict Darfur – where two rebel movements have taken up arms against the Islamic regime of Khartoum in protest against its neglect and lack of protection for the region – has already claimed at least 10,000 lives and created a million internally displaced people, while a further 130,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad

The Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) are on the brink of reaching an agreement on the contentious issues of power-sharing and the legal status of the capital, Khartoum, a Sudanese official told IRIN on Friday. 
Peace negotiations between the two sides had hit a deadlock over power-sharing and the application of shari'ah in Khartoum. But the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which is coordinating the talks, has been trying to find a basis for compromise. 
"We are much closer than we were before. I expect we will sign an agreement on these issues within the next few days," Ahmad Dirdiery, the Sudanese deputy ambassador to Kenya, where the talks are being held, told IRIN. 
The two sides were broadly in agreement on power-sharing and the future status of three disputed areas, namely the Nuba mountains, southern Blue Nile and oil-rich Abyei. "I expect we will sign protocols on these soon," Samson Kwaje, an SPLM/A spokesman, told IRIN on Friday. 
"Our positions are much closer than they have been in a long time. I am encouraged by the way things are moving," Kwaje added. "We are very close but not there yet." 
The contentious issue of the legal status of Khartoum had also been resolved, a source close to the talks told IRIN. 
The two sides had disagreed over the application of shari'ah in the capital, with he government insisting on the Islamic code continuing to apply there on the basis that the two sides had earlier agreed that it apply throughout the northern part of the country. 
The SPLM/A, however, argued that Khartoum was "a special case as the national capital of the whole of Sudan, not just the north, and should therefore be exempt from shari'ah". 
The source said two sides had now agreed that shari'ah continue to apply in Khartoum, "with guarantees to non-Muslims that their religious rights will not be affected". 
According to Kwaje, once these protocols are signed, the talks will take a break "of two to three weeks" to allow for time "to bring together all the earlier agreements into a comprehensive peace agreement". 
Sudan has experienced civil war since 1983 when the SPLM/A took up arms to fight for self-determination in the south. The ongoing talks in the western Kenyan town of Naivasha, are intended to end the conflict which has affected millions of people.

UN officials pressed the Security Council to take action in Sudan, where the government is accused of crimes against humanity in the troubled western region of Darfur. 
Acting UN human rights chief Bertrand Ramcharan and James Morris, director of the World Food Programme, briefed the 15-nation council on Darfur, what the United Nations now calls the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. 
"This is taking place before our very eyes," Ramcharan told reporters after the closed-door briefing. "No one can say they didn't know." 
He accused the government of conducting a "reign of terror" and "repeated war crimes and crimes against humanity" by supporting militia and nomads who have been driving black Africans out of the region. 
An estimated one million people have been displaced inside the country, and a UN report this week said the government was deliberately starving some. More than 100,000 others have fled across the border into Chad. 
In a damning report released in Geneva, Ramcharan noted repeated attacks by militia and Sudanese troops on villages, including air raids and killings targeting men and boys. 
The government in Sudan, Africa's largest nation, is dominated by Arabs but the country is also home to large black ethnic groups like those in Darfur. 
Morris said he had told the council that, with the rainy season approaching, the humanitarian situation risked going far beyond just a shortage of food but extended to water, sanitation, health care and more. 
"They did grasp the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis," Morris said. 
Stuart Holliday, one of the US ambassadors to the United Nations, said the international community had come to a "fork in the road" over Darfur. 
"We will not hesitate in continuing to address this issue in the Security Council should we not see progress," he said. 
"We'll wait and see, and watch the responsibility of the government and other parties, other militia groups, in the coming weeks." No action was taken, however, as Sudan is not officially on the council's agenda. 
The Darfur crisis started in the aftermath of a rebellion launched in the region in February 2003. 
Khartoum has repeatedly denied the charges and Sudan's UN ambassador Elfatih Mohamed Ahmed Erwa told reporters that his government was simply caught up in trying to fight a rebel insurgency. 
"War is a war," he said. "Maybe in some modern states they call it collateral damage but there -- it's a war."

Sudan's government and main rebel group expect to sign key elements of a comprehensive accord to end more than two decades of war in the next few days, mediators said. 
The Khartoum government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) "reiterated their commitment to resolving the remaining issues and pledged to reach an agreement in the coming days," according to a statement from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the grouping of African states mediating in the conflict. 
The current, much extended, round of negotiations in Kenya led by Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA leader John Garang is dealing with power-sharing and the status of three disputed geographical areas. 
"We can reach an agreement as soon as Sunday on all the remaining issues (on the agenda of the current round)," said an SPLA source who asked not to be named. 
Ministers from members states of an IGAD subcommittee handling the Sudan dossier -- Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya -- met in Naivasha 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Nairobi on Friday. They urged Taha and Garang "to exercise flexibility in reaching understanding on all the remaining aspects," said the statement. 
Mediation officials told AFP that the two sides had narrowed their differences on whether Islamic law should apply in Khartoum during a six-year transition period when the city will serve as joint capital for both north and south. 
Even if texts are signed in the coming days, another round of talks will be needed to clinch agreement on the details of a comprehensive ceasefire, the modalities for its implementation and the nature of an international peacekeeping force. 
"This could take several months," according to one Nairobi-based analyst following the peace process. 
The war, coupled with recurrent famine and disease, has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced more than four million people. 
Since July 2002, when the two sides struck an accord granting the south the right to a referendum after a six-year transition period, other deals have been reached on a 50-50 split of the country's wealth -- particularly revenues from oil -- and on how to manage government and SPLA armies during the interim period. 
The south, where most people observe Christian or traditional faiths, has been fighting to end its domination and marginalisation by successive governments in Khartoum.

France has urged the Sudanese government immediately to stop attacks by its ally in the war in Sudan's western Darfur region, the Arab Janjawid militia, a foreign ministry spokesman said here Friday. 
"We are worried by corroborating reports saying that the armed militia called the Janjawid are still active, not only in Darfur but also in neighbouring Chad," said Herve Ladsous. 
The Chadian government brokered a peace pact for Darfur on April 8, under which the parties to the 15-month conflict in the far west of Sudan -- Khartoum and its Janjawid allies, and two rebel groups -- agreed to stop fighting, guarantee safe passage for humanitarian aid to the stricken region, free prisoners of war and disarm militias. 
France represented the European Union at the talks in Ndjamena that resulted in the pact, Ladsous said. 
"We urge the government in Khartoum to immediately take all necessary steps to ensure that the Ndjamena ceasefire accord is respected and to halt all activities of these militias," Ladsous told reporters in Paris. 
"The African Union is about to send a military reconnaissance mission to Darfur, in which representatives of France and the European Union are expected to take part, with a view to setting up a military commission to monitor the ceasefire called for in the April 8 accord," said Ladsous. 
"This presence will help to calm the situation in Darfur by restoring confidence and facilitating access, notably of humanitarian staff, who must now, imperatively, be able to bring aid to displaced persons," he said. 
Reports by Human Rights Watch and the UN have said one million people have been displaced in Darfur and some 10,000 killed in just over a year of fighting. A UN report obtained by AFP Thursday also accused the Khartoum government of deliberately starving civilians in Darfur. 
On Wednesday, the Chadian government said Janjawid fighters had launched an attack inside Chad, the second in a week. 
The war in Darfur began in February 2003, when two rebel groups drawn from black African ethnic groups took up arms against the Khartoum government to demand an end to economic marginalization and to seek power-sharing within the Arab-ruled Sudanese state. 
The rebels are fighting the Sudanese army and its Janjawid allies, who, according to HRW, target civilian populations from which the rebels are drawn.

“The Sudanese are discouraged: they are wondering for how much longer the international community and the United Nations will continue to issue ‘warnings’ to the Sudanese government, which has demonstrated that it does not want peace,” the auxiliary bishop of Torit, Akio Jonson Mutek, told MISNA. Speaking by telephone from Nairobi, Kenya, he dwelt on the alarming scenario in Sudan, where on the one hand – in the remote western region of Darfur - there is an armed conflict under way between local rebels and the armed forces of Khartoum, while on the other the country is looking with hope but also with scepticism at the peace talks underway in Kenya between the central Islamic government and the separatists of SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), who have been fighting for autonomy in the southern territories since 1983. “There are signs of widespread discontent due to the continual postponement of the signing of the peace accord between the government and SPLA,” explains the prelate. “In particular it is a question of understanding who it is that continues to benefit from the fighting.” The international community has been waiting for the signing of an agreement for months, but the leader of the rebels John Garang and the Sudanese vice president Osman Taha have not yet managed to agree on the future status of Abiey, a region claimed by the southern separatists but which is situated in the north. “I have had the opportunity of speaking to those who are following the negotiations between the two sides in Naivasha,” adds the bishop. “They report a specific will to delay, to avoid reaching a definitive agreement.” Monsignor Mutek says that someone “stands to gain from the continuation of the fighting: a lasting peace would threaten this ‘business’ linked to the conflict,” which has claimed over two million lives in 20 years. “However, there are signs of armed clashes in other areas as well, especially in the Upper Nile. My impression is that the government of Khartoum has an interest in fomenting tension, so that it can then say that southern Sudan is not capable of governing itself.” Meanwhile, in the western region the clashes between the rebels and the government forces continue: “The Sudanese authorities signed a truce a few weeks ago, but then they failed to keep the bargain.” Khartoum is accused of backing the Arab ‘Janjaweed’ militias: the latest reports confirm that these militias - supported by Sudanese troops – clashed with soldiers in neighbouring Chad, where over 100,000 Sudanese (120,000-130,000 according to United Nations estimates) have sought shelter from the violence. In April, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan alluded to military intervention as a possible last resort: “I do not believe that this is the only option, but if the international community could at least maintain a presence here it would realise what is happening in Darfur,” continued the auxiliary bishop of Torit. In effect, with the exception of a handful of aid agencies the only international mission to this part of Sudan has been a team sent by the UN Human Rights Commission, which gathered testimonies of serious violations, which have also been acknowledged by the Sudanese foreign minister. Meanwhile, the UN estimates that this new front in the war in Sudan has already left 10,000 people dead and displaced a million people from their homes. Meanwhile, peace continues to be postponed.

The army of N’Djamena has clashed with the Janjaweed Arab predators active in the remote Darfur region in western Sudan in Birak, just inside the Chadian border, Moctar Wawa Dahabune, the spokesman of the government of N’Djamena has said, without providing a toll of victims. However, anonymous Chadian military sources have said that at least seven people – six civilians and a regular soldier – died, while numerous people have been injured. “This clash is the consequence of multiple raids, frequent and repeated, by the Janjaweed in Chad,” said Dahabune, adding: “The Chadian government deplores these raids and urges the Sudanese government to control the armed Janjaweed militias so as not to compromise relations between the two countries”. Darfur has been the scene of a battle between the government of army and two armed groups, JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) and SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement) since February 2003; the rebels accuse Khartoum of neglecting the region and of financing the Janjaweed militias, which have tormented the population in this part of Sudan for years.[

The humanitarian crisis in Darfur, western Sudan, is one of the worst in the world, and has been devastating to women and girls, according to senior UN officials. 
"This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with so many people in the most belligerent way being chased from their homes. Everything has been taken away from these people. This is tragic," UN World Food Programme Executive Director James Morris was quoted by UN News as saying in London on Tuesday. 
Morris last week led a high-level UN team to assess the situation in Darfur. The team also comprised Ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen, the UN secretary-general's special envoy for humanitarian affairs in Sudan, and other senior officials from UN headquarters and agencies. It toured the three states of Darfur regions, from 28 to 30 April, to "gather first-hand information on the humanitarian situation, and assess the scope of the crisis". 
The Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year between the Sudanese government and militias allied to it on the one hand and two rebel groups on the other hand, has displaced over one million people, while some 110,000 others have fled to Chad. It has also been described by the UN as "one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises". 
Despite a ceasefire agreement signed on 8 April between the government and the rebels, which led to a reduction of hostilities, the humanitarian crisis persists. 
"There's an urgency about our work, because people are suffering and the rainy season is just ahead of us and we need to get our work done as much in anticipation of the rainy season as is possible," Morris said. 
The continuing conflict was having a devastating effect on women and girls, according to Pamela Delargy, the chief of the humanitarian response unit of the UN Population Fund, who was part of the team led by Morris. Women and girls were vulnerable both during attacks and when they left camps for internally displaced persons to do chores to gather water, fuel or fodder, she said. 
"As in many other recent conflicts, rape has become a weapon of war in western Sudan, with disastrous consequences for women and girls," she added. 
Meanwhile Sudan was on Tuesday reelected to the UN Human Rights Commission, despite objections mainly by the United States. Sudan was among 14 countries was elected to the UN's highest forum for examining human rights around the world. The nomination, by the African Group, prompted the US delegation to walk out. The other African countries that named onto the commission were Guinea, Kenya and Togo 

A delegation from the Arab League is in Darfur today to assess the humanitarian needs of the local population in the three States making up the remote region in western Sudan, where rebels and government forces have been engaged in a bloody conflict for over a year. Sudanese press sources have said that the team led by Samir Hosni, in charge of Sudanese affairs in the Arab League, is due to visit a few towns in the region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed, a million people are internally displaced and 130,000 people have fled to neighbouring Chad since fighting began in February 2003. The Sudanese daily ‘Al-Ayam’ stresses that the President of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, made an urgent appeal to Arab countries to send humanitarian aid to Darfur a few days ago. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates immediately answered his request. Meanwhile, today the executive director of WFP (World Food Programme) in Rome once again raised the alarm over the gravity of the crisis caused by intense fighting between the central Islamic government and the armed rebels, who accuse the government of Khartoum of abandoning the region inhabited mostly by blacks of Chadian origin and of backing the Arab predators known as Janjaweed, who have tormented the area for years. “Darfur represents one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world,” said Morris. Today the United Nations broadcast some of the first pictures of the war in Darfur: frames illustrating the state of total abandon of large tracts of land that now contain only the carcasses of destroyed vehicles and abandoned buildings bearing clear signs of violent fighting.

The observations of the experts of the United Nations inquiry mission in the region of Darfur (West Sudan), theatre to over a year of conflict between the rebels and government, confirm the testimonies of large-scale violations already reported by Sudanese refugees in Chad. The announcement was made in Geneva by José Luis Diaz, spokesman of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. The UN team initially went to Chad, where an estimated over 100-thousand Sudanese have sought refuge from the fighting in Darfur, meeting with the refugees and gathering many testimonies of serious human rights violations. After obtaining authorisation from the government of Sudan, at first denied, the experts remained for 6 days in Darfur, meeting with both the displaced (estimated to be nearly a million) and local authorities. The information collected previously and now confirmed, is “extremely preoccupying”. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan had launched the alarm over a possible ‘ethnic cleansing’ underway in Darfur against the black population, denied by the Islamic regime of Khartoum, whose Foreign Minister instead admitted “human rights violations”. The report of the inquiry mission will be reported by the end of the week to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan. The spokesman also announced the transferral of over 50,000 Sudanese refugees from the Chad border zone into four safer camps inside the nation; in the past weeks they had been attacked by the ‘Janjaweed’ Arab militias of Darfur, backed by Sudan authorities. Since February 2003 the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement) and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) rose against the Khartoum armed forces, accusing the government of neglecting the region and not guaranteeing security to the local populations, exposed to attacks of Arab militants. According to the UN, the toll of the conflict is so far of over a million displaced, 130-thousand refugees and 10-thousand victims.

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), James Morris, appealed to the international community on Monday to help more than 100,000 refugees from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, after touring some of their camps in the semi-desert of eastern Chad. 
"This is just one of the most awful humanitarian crises in the world. When this many people in the most belligerent, mean spirited way are chased from their homes… They are scared to death," Morris told IRIN. 
He particularly appealed for aid to continue airlifting food to the refugees once the onset of the rainy season in June makes the unpaved roads to eastern Chad impassable. 
At Tolom, one of seven camps hosting Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad, women dressed in brightly coloured cloth huddled together on the sand, while their menfolk gathered under the shade of a rare tree while they all waited for vital food rations. 
"Everything has been taken away from these people. This is tragic," Morris said. 
The Tolom camp is over crowded, with nearly twice as many refugees as it was originally intended for. 
Faiza Ali Hussein is 21 and comes from Agamra in Sudan where she was a teacher. She said she was chased out of her home along with her husband, a teacher in a Koranic school and her three children. Her husband's second wife and her nine children fled with them. 
"The Janjaweed militia came with their horses and burned our possessions and looted. Then the government Anotovs [Russian built planes] bombarded our house - I saw people lying dead," Hussein told IRIN. 
After fleeing by donkey and begging food to stay alive, Hussein says that she and her family were lucky to be picked up by a truck belonging to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which brought them to Tolom. 
"We have been living here for three months under plastic sheeting that was given to us. I am happy to have fled the war," she said. 
"The Tolom camp was originally planned for 7,500 people. It is now hosting more than 12,000, said Vincent Dupin of Norwegian Church Aid, which is building wells, latrines and other facilities at Tolom. 
More refugees continue to arrive at Tolom daily. 
"Everyday new people are coming on foot, on donkeys, in convoys," Alfred Demotibaye the Tolom camp manager, who works for the Chadian branch of Caritas, told IRIN. 
According to WFP more than one million Sudanese have been affected by fighting in Darfur, western Sudan. Relief agency estimates of those who have fled across the border range from 95,000 to 110,000. 
International human rights organisations accuse the Arab-dominated government of Sudan of supporting an ethnic cleansing terror campaign against the black residents of Darfur. 
Khartoum has denied such reports, adding that it has nothing to hide from a UN investigation team that arrived in Darfur at the end of April. 
The WFP launched a US$ 19.4 million feeding programme for the refugees in December 2003. To date WFP has received US$ 14.7 million from Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the UK and the US. 
But as the rainy season approaches, WFP and partners are trying to stockpile enough food to feed 95,000 refugees for four months - that is to last them until the end of the rains in September. 
During the wet season, Chad's unpaved roads are churned into mud and become impassable. 
Morris revealed that a special air service to distribute food supplies to the remote refugee camps would run out of funding by the end of June. 
"Without immediate contributions," warned Morris, "the air service will be interrupted within two months, right at the onset of the rainy season when roads become totally impassable." 
Chad, a land locked largely desert country of 1.3 million square km - around three times the size of France - has no railways and less than 300 km of paved roads.

The high-level United Nations team currently on a fact-finding mission to Sudan's western region of Darfur has split into two groups, the UN reported. 
One group, led by World Food Programme Executive Director James Morris, first went to Bandago, a village whose sole inhabitants were found to be just three elderly men, out of an original population of 250 families, UN News said. 
The group then went on to Korma, about 80 km northwest of Al-Fashir, the state capital. Here, the marketplace had been completely destroyed. People in the town told the team that they had been attacked by militia who killed 49 residents on 16 March.
Next, at Abu Shawk camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) the group briefly spoke with residents. It "stressed to local officials that IDPs' areas of origin needed to be safe before they could go home", UN News said.
The other group, led by the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, Tom Eric Vraalsen, went to Southern Darfur State, where they met the state governor on Wednesday. On Thursday, they proceeded to the town of Kas, about 60 km northwest of the state capital, Nyala. Here, they found that "IDPs were being housed in public buildings and other 'highly unsuitable accommodations'". The town's hospital was found to be in a "bad condition".
On their way from Kas to Nyala, the group had stopped at a burnt-down village before meeting officials and the local peace committee, UN News added.
The aim of the mission was "to assess the scope of what has been characterised as the world's worst humanitarian disaster, as Arab militias attack the local black Sudanese", it added.
The Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year between the Sudanese government and militias allied to it on the one hand and two rebel groups on the other hand, has displaced over one million people. 
The UN mission is expected to return to Khartoum on Friday and leave the country the following day.

Chad armed forces reportedly clashed with Sudan government troops, after the Arab militants militarily supported by Khartoum crossed over into Chadian territory to attack Sudanese refugees. If the incident should be confirmed – for the moment there have been no declarations from the two governments – it would be the first time since the start of the conflict in Darfur (West Sudan) in February 2003 that the soldiers of the two nations clash directly. According to the spokesman of one of the two armed movements of Darfur that over a year ago rose against Khartoum authorities, last Wednesday Arab militias, known as ‘Janjaweed’, crossed the border in the zone of Beir Ruswan, penetrating 10km into Chad. “They attacked a camp of Sudanese refugees and stole the cattle”, stated Muhammad Mursal, cited by the internet site of Qatar’s ‘Al Jazeera’ satellite network, adding that four people were killed. At that point Chad government troops intervened, pushing the militants back over the border and clashing with Sudan armed forces. “The situation is even more unacceptable because Khartoum troops tolerate the ‘Janjaweed’ militias, offering them air and land military coverage”, stated Allami Ahmat, a Chadian army officer. A spokesman of the government of N’Djamena declared that Chadian troops were deployed along the border to impede eventual new attacks by the ‘Janjaweed’ and protect the Sudanese refugees that for months have fled their villages in Darfur, seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad. The United Nations recently accused the Islamic regime of Sudan of backing the Arab militias in an ‘ethnic cleansing’ against the black population of Darfur. In the past days the government of Khartoum admitted “human rights violations” in the remote western region, however rejecting accusations of an ethnic cleansing. For over a year two armed groups – the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement) and the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) – rose against the Sudan government for neglecting the remote region and backing the Arab militias that continue perpetrating violations against the local population. According to the UN, the conflict has already caused the internal displacement of a million people, 130-thousand refugees (all in Chad) and 10-thousand victims. A UN mission is being conducted in the past days by experts to evaluate the consequences of the conflict in the territory.

A high-level United Nations mission has arrived in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, to gather information on the humanitarian conditions in the western region of Darfur.
The team, led by UN World Food Programme Executive Director James Morris, also includes the UN secretary-general's special envoy for humanitarian affairs in Sudan, Ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen, and other senior officials from UN headquarters and agencies.
On Wednesday, the team held a meeting with President Umar Hasan al-Bashir "in a cordial atmosphere", after which it left for Darfur, according to a press statement issued on Wednesday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The mission was scheduled to visit Darfur's three regions to "gather first-hand information on the humanitarian situation, and assess the scope of the crisis", said the statement.
It said the mission would meet local officials, community leaders and representatives of NGOs and other international organisations in the area "to review and address issues of civilian protection, humanitarian access and operations". 
The Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year between the Sudanese government and militias allied to it on the one hand and two rebel groups on the other hand, has displaced over one million people, while some 110,000 others have fled to Chad. It has been described by the UN as "one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises". 
The UN mission is expected to return to Khartoum on Friday and leave the country the following day.

A team from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) arrived in a Chadian border town to verify reports of new refugees from Sudan's western region of Darfur arriving since the beginning of the month, the UNHCR said on Tuesday.
Ron Redmond, a UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, said "local authorities estimate that each week some 200 to 300 people have been crossing the border from Darfur into Chad since the beginning of the month".
The new refugees were joining some 7,000 refugees already registered in the Chadian border town of Bahai. Some of the newcomers told the UNHCR team that "they left their homes following attacks by militia on 2 April", who had looted and burned their houses, said Redmond.
He said UNHCR and its partner CARE would on Wednesday distribute aid to refugees in the Kariari area, 35 km north of Bahai. Some 16,000 refugees who fled from Darfur in January and February after their villages had been bombed by aircraft and attacked by militias, are sheltering in the town.
The main problem facing these two camps was that of water. The camps had reached their maximum capacity in terms of water resources, said Redmond, and UNHCR was searching for additional sources. 
He added that the refugees had been surviving on food they had brought with them from Darfur and had been helped by the local population who also shared their food with them. This generosity, however, had now reached its limits as Chadian families also had to think of their own survival. As a result, the "people have turned to eating mukhet, which are seeds normally used to feed cattle", Redmond said. 
According to a recent survey by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), refugees arriving at a mobile clinic IRC has in Kariari suffered mainly from diarrhoea, respiratory infections and conjunctivitis. IRC noted, however, that "nearly half of the mothers and children met on 21 April at the clinic were there not for consultations, but to ask for food".
Redmond said the refugee situation in Kariari and Bahai, as well as in Tine, "underlines the urgency to open new camps as soon as possible to continue moving refugees away from the border". 
The Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year between the Sudanese government and militias allied to it on the one hand and two rebel groups on the other hand, has displaced some 1.1 million people, including some 110,000 who have fled to Chad.

The high-level United Nations team currently on a fact-finding mission to Sudan's western region of Darfur has split into two groups, the UN reported. 
One group, led by World Food Programme Executive Director James Morris, first went to Bandago, a village whose sole inhabitants were found to be just three elderly men, out of an original population of 250 families, UN News said. 
The group then went on to Korma, about 80 km northwest of Al-Fashir, the state capital. Here, the marketplace had been completely destroyed. People in the town told the team that they had been attacked by militia who killed 49 residents on 16 March. 
Next, at Abu Shawk camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) the group briefly spoke with residents. It "stressed to local officials that IDPs' areas of origin needed to be safe before they could go home", UN News said. 
The other group, led by the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, Tom Eric Vraalsen, went to Southern Darfur State, where they met the state governor on Wednesday. On Thursday, they proceeded to the town of Kas, about 60 km northwest of the state capital, Nyala. Here, they found that "IDPs were being housed in public buildings and other 'highly unsuitable accommodations'". The town's hospital was found to be in a "bad condition". 
On their way from Kas to Nyala, the group had stopped at a burnt-down village before meeting officials and the local peace committee, UN News added. 
The aim of the mission was "to assess the scope of what has been characterised as the world's worst humanitarian disaster, as Arab militias attack the local black Sudanese", it added. 
The Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year between the Sudanese government and militias allied to it on the one hand and two rebel groups on the other hand, has displaced over one million people. 
The UN mission is expected to return to Khartoum on Friday and leave the country the following day.

The Chadian government has denied any serious breakdown in the peace talks aimed at resolving the 14-month-old crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. 
A spokesman for the Chadian government's mediation team, Ahmad Allammi, told IRIN on Tuesday that weekend talks between the Sudanese government and two Sudanese rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had not failed. 
Allammi said the discussions, which took place in the Chadian capital, N'djamena, had been part of a "preparatory phase", enabling participants to determine the agenda for peace talks which will resume in due course. 
Allammi said the weekend talks had ended in agreement, amongst other things, on the creation of a "mixed preparatory committee" to determine the agenda, date and venue of a later peace conference. 
Chad is leading the mediation initiative on Darfur, backed by representatives of the African Union. 
A previous round of talks in N'djamena in April secured a cease-fire between the warring parties, who also agreed to allow humanitarian aid into the Darfur region. 
However, each side has since accused the other of violating that cease-fire. 
Government and rebels have fought in Darfur, Sudan's western region that borders Chad, since February 2003. Rebels claim to be fighting for greater political and economic rights for the region. 
Last month, the United Nations dubbed it the "world's worst humanitarian crisis". One million people are internally displaced, while another 110,000 have become refugees in eastern Chad. 
The Sudanese government has been accused of "ethnic cleansing" by international rights groups. All sides in the conflict have been accused of killing civilians, engaging in rape, looting and the burning of villages. 
On Monday, the Reuters news agency reported that JEM rebels wanted the conference's venue to be moved away from N'djamena because Chad was biased towards the government of Khartoum. 
The agency also quoted a western diplomat who assisted in earlier cease-fire talks as acknowledging "there was a general consensus among the internationals present that there was a definite Chadian bias towards the Sudanese government." 
Allammi dismissed such accusations. He said all sides have made accusations of bias. He also questioned the authenticity of such a statement, accusing "outside forces of wanting to torpedo peace efforts." 
"We [the Chadian mediation] are in contact with the rebels, we discuss with them," Allammi said. 
However, Allammi conceded that it would be preferable if the peace talks were taking place in Sudan and not Chad. 
"Chad is not hooked on the idea of hosting the conference, it would be best if they hosted it in Sudan," the spokesman said. 
No date has yet has been set for the promised resumption of talks. The SLA and JEM were unavailable for comment on the matter.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed an agreement on a framework for talks to resolve the problems in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, but urged the parties to continue negotiating "in good faith". 
In a statement issued by his spokesman on Wednesday, Annan called on the parties to the Darfur conflict to observe their ceasefire agreement "and do everything possible to prevent attacks on civilians". 
The two sides signed a ceasefire agreement on 8 April to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the victims of the conflict. The UN estimates that 1.2 million people are affected by the conflict. 
The secretary-general stressed the need for "unimpeded access for the delivery of humanitarian assistance" to the affected populations. 
Annan commended the African Union (AU) for sending a ceasefire observer mission to Darfur, and encouraged "its speedy deployment". He assured AU and the government of Chad, which is hosting the talks, and thousands of refugees, of the UN's "support and cooperation in restoring peace in Darfur".
Meanwhile, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) says it has started assisting people affected by the conflict, who had been unreachable before the ceasefire. In a statement issued on Wednesday, UNICEF said it has vaccinated "48,000 children between the ages of two and 15 against meningitis in several camps and in the nearby communities of Kutum and Kabkabiyah in Northern Darfur."
"More than one million people are already affected by this crisis and many more could suffer in the coming months," Joanna van Gerpen, the UNICEF representative in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, is quoted in the statement as saying.  "It is imperative that we take maximum advantage of this window to save as many lives as possible." 
The Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year between the Sudanese government and allied militias, on the one hand, and two rebel groups on the other hand, has displaced about one million people, while some 110,000 others have fled to Chad.

SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) leader John Garang offered his contribution in efforts to resolve the conflict afflicting the western region of Darfur for the past year. The news was referred by SPLA spokesman Yasser Arman, specifying that Garang took this decision after meeting over the weekend in Eritrea with the leader of one of the groups combating against Khartoum, Abdulwahid Mohammed Ahmed of the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement). “We represent an important political force in Sudan and we cannot be ignored”, declared Yasser Arman to AFP. According to Arman, it was apparently the US State Under-Secretary Charles Snyder and American emissary in the inter-Sudanese peace talks John Darforth to call for an intervention by Garang, already engaged in the difficult negotiations underway in Naivasha, Kenya, to end two-decades of conflict in South Sudan. But Garang’s meeting in Eritrea with the SLA-M leader provoked strong reactions from the Khartoum government that accused the SPLA of providing military support to the rebels active in Darfur. Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail declared that the actual fact that Garang temporarily abandoned talks in Naivasha to meet with Abdulwahid Mohammed Ahmed, demonstrates bad faith of the SPLA in the peace process with Khartoum. The Minister added that the government has concrete proof that the SPLA is supporting the SLA-M with the objective of destabilising and eventually overthrowing the government. “The SPLA policy has always been to move toward the north. The SPLA is part of the rebellion in Darfur”, stated Mustafa Ismail. While from Kenya, SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje admitted that his movement “morally and politically” backs the SLA-M “because it is suffering the same marginalisation inflicted on the people of the south. But we are not combating in the region and not arming anyone”.

The rebels of Darfur, the remote western region of Sudan afflicted for over a year by fighting, called for the transferral of negotiations opened in the past weeks in Ndjamena (Chad), accusing the Chadian government of being too close to Khartoum positions. The request comes from one of the two movements that last year rose against the central Islamic government of Sudan, the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement), which in a statement issued to the Reuters explained: “it is absolutely senseless to resume talks in a nation with such strong ties to our political enemy, the Khartoum regime”. The lack of confidence of the JEM and SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement), the first to take up arms against Khartoum in February 2003, against the Chadian mediation is not a novelty: in the past months while works were underway to organise talks between the rebels and government, the rebellion accused Chadian President Idriss Deby of being too close to the positions of his Sudanese counterpart Omar el Beshir. But according to anonymous sources present at the negotiation table cited by Reuters, also the international mediators present in these days at the Ndjamena talks have confirmed a certain tendency of the Chadians toward the Sudanese government: “there were several small incidents in which representatives of the international community had to make serious efforts to avoid unbalances in favour of Khartoum”, stated the anonymous source to Reuters, without providing ulterior details. Since February 2003 the JEM and SLA-M formally rose in arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, accused of neglecting Darfur, because prevalently inhabited by blacks, and of financing Arab militants (known as Janjaweed) that for years have been causing death and destruction in this part of Sudan, according to some sources, including local UN representatives, theatre to a “new genocide”. Based on UN estimates, a year of fighting has already resulted in a million internally displaced, 130-thousand refugees (all in bordering Chad) and various thousands of dead.

The leader of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), John Garang, is expected to return to the venue of peace talks with the government "within the next 24 hours", a source close to the talks in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, told IRIN on Monday.
Garang's expected return follows that of Sudanese First Vice-President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha on Sunday morning. Taha "came back after concluding consultations in [the Sudanese capital] Khartoum for the next phase of the talks", Neiman Bilal, the press attaché at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN.
Taha, the head of the government delegation to the talks, had left Naivasha for Khartoum on 17 April for consultations with his government over the talks, a Sudanese government official told IRIN at the time. His departure was followed by that of Garang on 23 April. 
The source said Taha's return, and the expected return of Garang "within the next 24 hours" would invigorate the peace talks. "Their return means they will be able to make decisions that need to be made to resolve the outstanding issues," said the source.
Committees at the talks, brokered by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), were continuing to discuss two contentious issues: power-sharing in regions disputed by Khartoum and the SPLA, and the law governing the national capital. 
The government of Sudan was insisting that shari'ah law must continue to apply in Khartoum because the two sides had earlier agreed that it would apply in north of the country, "and Khartoum is in the north", Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in Nairobi, told IRIN on Friday.
However, Samson Kwaje, an SPLM/A spokesman, told IRIN that Khartoum was "a special case as the national capital of the whole of Sudan, not just the north, and should therefore be exempt from shari'ah".
Kwaje said on Monday he hoped that Taha, after consultations with his government, "will come [up] with a positive response to resolve these two issues".
Dirdeiry, for his part, said his side was waiting for a proposal from the IGAD secretariat on how the outstanding issues could be resolved. "The vice-president returned after IGAD said it was ready to present its proposal. We are waiting for that and the return of Garang." He added that the government of Sudan "will respond once the IGAD proposal on the two issues is presented to it."

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an urgent appeal for US $98 million to help feed people affected by the ongoing conflict in the western region of Darfur, the organisation said on Friday. 
In a statement, the WFP said the money would be used "to feed the 1.2 million people [and] will address the known emergency needs 
"The need for emergency food aid in Darfur is acute," the statement quoted James Morris, the WFP executive director, as saying. "The conflict has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their farms and homes and left them completely destitute. Food assistance is crucial to saving lives," he added. 
Welcoming the 8 April ceasefire agreement between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups operating in Darfur, WFP said it was planning to improve its capacity on the ground to assist those in need. Insecurity has in the past hampered the agency's ability to provide assistance.
About 60-65 percent of the aid is going to women, because they account "for 80 percent of agricultural production", WFP said. "Women have also suffered most in the violence: while villages have been burnt down, and cattle and possessions looted, it is the women who have been raped or left widowed, and they now form the majority of the traumatised and displaced." The agency added that 91 percent of the aid would go to people who were forced out of their villages before they could plant.
WFP warned that the people who had lost everything still faced "the spectre of hunger and death even if the conflict were to end today" and that "the prospects for 2004 are very bleak
"It is not too late to avert a catastrophe in Darfur, but only if those involved and the international community act without further delay," said Morris, who has also been asked by the UN secretary-general to lead a United Nations inter-agency mission from 27 April to 2 May to assess humanitarian needs in Darfur.

The protagonists of the conflict that has racked the remote western region of Darfur for over a year have resumed the peace talks initiated in Ndjamena, capital of neighbouring Chad, a few weeks ago. Though important, the news has been almost completely ignored due to the rows in New York and Geneva over the war that was until recently itself similarly ignored. The document on the conflict adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Commission yesterday – a document that some have defined as “mitigated”, and which is the work of the group of African countries in particular – failed to please the United States, which had proposed a strong resolution denouncing the acts of violence conducted by the ‘Janjaweed’, the Arab predators who have been tormenting the local population for years. Instead the UN document – a simple “declaration by the President of the Commission” approved with 50 votes in favour, one – the United states – against and two abstentions – only asks the Sudanese government to “neutralise” the militia fighting in Darfur, without making further distinctions. In a subsequent intervention before the commission, the US announced its intention of requesting a special session entirely dedicated to the crisis in the region. “The situation in Darfur requires decisive action; 30,000 people have already been killed and 900,000 people have been displaced by the ethnic cleansing, while the threat of famine looms,” the American ambassador Richard Williamson told the commission before the close of its annual session. And so the return to the negotiating table of the government and SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement) and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement), the two movements that took up arms against Khartoum in February 2003, has taken second place. During a closed-door meeting at the foreign ministry in the Chadian capital, the combatants in Darfur picked up discussions where they left off a few weeks previously, when they signed a humanitarian ‘ceasefire’ allowing aid agencies and international organisations to assist the civilian population in Darfur. In just over 12 months, the conflict has created a humanitarian crisis of huge proportions: there are almost one million internally displaced people and 130,000 refugees (almost all of whom are in neighbouring Chad), while at least 10,000 people have been killed. Now the two sides must agree an agenda for tackling the underlying political issues. Following the recent reports and denials of the possible violation of the truce, yesterday the New York-based human rights watchdog ‘Human Rights Watch’ has released the report of a massacre conducted in mid-March, involving the Janjaweed in conjunction with the Sudanese army, in which 136 people lost their lives. The conflict in Darfur also has reverberations in Naivasha, a few dozen kilometres from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where talks are underway to end the other ‘historic’ conflict in Sudan, in the south, which in 20 years has claimed over two million lives. The signing of a definitive peace accord has been “imminent” since December. The closest observers have been discouraging premature celebrations for a while. The words of one of the leaders of the delegation of the southern rebels, SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), appear to confirm the pessimism over the future for the whole of Sudan and its people: “The peace process is taking negative knocks,” said Pagan Amum, with reference to the news emerging from Darfur and other parts of the country. “If the government continues to kill people, there will be no point over which to reach a accord, because what we want is not a peaceful cemetery but a peace that allows people to live like human beings,” he concluded. (Translation of an article by Massimo Zaurrini)

The United Nations Human Rights Commission today adopted a resolution on the serious humanitarian crisis caused by the war underway for over a year in Darfur, the remote western region of Sudan along the border with Chad. The text avoided an open condemnation of the Sudan government, causing criticism by the United States that was pushing for a more severe resolution. The news was referred by international sources, specifying that the document of the UN Commission, a simple “statement of the Commission president”, voluntarily avoided using harsh tones against the Khartoum government, accused of financing the militias of Arab thieves (known as Janjaweed) that for years have caused death and destruction among the civil population of Darfur. In response to this violence, in February 2003 two self-defence groups, formed by the black population of the west Sudanese zone, formally rose in arms against the central Islamic government. Resulting in a war that in a little over 12 months has already caused a humanitarian crisis depicted clearly by the estimates provided by aid organisations and UN personnel: nearly a mission internally displaced, 130-thousand refugees (nearly all in bordering Chad) and at least 10-thousand dead, though the death toll is feared to be higher. The text approved today by the Commission (50 votes in favour, one contrary and one abstention) calls on the Sudanese government to “neutralise” the combatant militias operating in Darfur, without further distinctions. Press indiscretions refer that the contrary vote was that of the US that in the previous hours had pushed for a firmer position of the document toward the government of Khartoum and its links to the Janjaweed. In the past 48 hours the UN was hit by another polemic: a statement of the US Human Rights Watch organisation in fact criticised the UN for failing to issue a report on the atrocities committed by the Janjaweed and Sudan armed forces against the Sudanese civil population, drawn up recently by a special UN Commission.

Peace talks between the Sudanese government and two rebel movements in the western province of Darfur are still on track, despite delays in sending a ceasefire verification team into the troubled area, a spokesman for the Chadian mediation team said on Friday.
Talks on a political solution to the 15-month-old conflict began in the Chadian capital N'djamena on Tuesday after the two sides agreed to a 45-day truce earlier in the month. The ceasefire is designed to enable humanitarian aid to reach nearly one million people who have been uprooted from their homes by the fighting.
Ahmad Allami, the official spokesman of the Chadian government's mediation team, told IRIN by telephone from N'djamena that "negotiations were still going on," and were likely to continue for "one or two months."
He rejected international news reports that the peace talks were on the verge of collapse following rebel accusations that government forces have repeatedly violated a ceasefire that came into effect on 11 April.
"The talks are not threatened," the Chadian diplomat said. "On both sides, there are accusations, the government accuses the rebels, the rebels accuse the governments." 
He pointed out that an African Union ceasefire verification commission had not yet been set up because of financial and procedural difficulties, so these accusations could not be verified. 
Allami said he himself travelled to the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa earlier in the week to try and speed up progress towards getting ceasefire monitors on the ground.
The diplomat said Chad recognized that accusations of ceasefire violations were "normal" in all peace negotiations.
But he said that Chad's mediation team would continue to host the talks in N'djamena so long as it had a mandate to do so from the belligerents and the international community. Chad hosts more than 110,000 refugees from the conflict in Darfur who have flooded across its eastern border.
The African Union is the only independent organisation allowed to participate in the current peace talks as an observer. It has also been charged with setting and financing the ceasefire verification commission. 
The United Nations, human rights movements and relief agencies have expressed concern at widespread atrocities committed against civilians in Darfur, where two rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, are battling against Sudanese government forces and their Arab militia allies.
On Friday, the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva overwhelmingly adopted a resolution expressing concern about the scale of reported abuses in Darfur.
The United States was the only country to vote against the text of the resolution because it failed to condemn what Washington regards as "ethnic cleansing" by pro-government forces in Darfur.
UN officials, human rights activists and relief agencies have accused government forces and their Arab militia allies of systematically clearing villages inhabited by people of black ethnic groups. Khartoum has denied the charges.

The leader of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), John Garang, left the Kenyan town of Naivasha, venue of the Sudanese peace talks, on Thursday, according to an SPLM/A official. 
Samson Kwaje, an SPLM/A spokesman, told IRIN on Friday that "since [First] Vice-President [Ali Uthman Muhammad] Taha is not in Naivasha there was no point in Dr Garang hanging around. He left on Thursday to attend to other business," Kwaje said, adding that Garang would be back "as soon as Taha returns". 
Taha, the head of the government delegation to the talks, returned to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on 17 April for consultations with his government over the talks, a Sudanese government official told IRIN at the time. 
Kwaje said committees at the talks, brokered by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development [IGAD] were continuing to discuss two contentious issues. These were "power-sharing in the disputed regions and the law governing the national capital".
The government of Sudan was insisting that shari'ah law must continue to apply in Khartoum because the two sides had earlier agreed that it would apply in north of the country, "and Khartoum is in the north", Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN.
Kwaje, however, said Khartoum was "a special case as the national capital of the whole of Sudan, not just the north, and should therefore be exempt from shari'ah".
He said the talks were not in trouble. "Committees from the two sides are still talking and meeting with the IGAD ] secretariat. We are hopeful that by the time the two leaders return we will have made very good progress to resolve the outstanding issues," Kwaje told IRIN.
For his part, Dirdeiry said he was hopeful that an expected IGAD proposal would serve to bridge the gap between the two sides. "We are hoping that whatever proposal they [IGAD] come up with will be balanced and acceptable to both sides."
He warned, however, that any proposal "must not breach the provision in the Machakos protocol on the relationship between state and religion". The protocol was signed by the government and the SPLM/A sides in August 2002 in the southwestern Kenyan town of Machakos.

A fact-finding mission from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) left Geneva on Tuesday for western Sudan's Darfur region to investigate the human rights situation there.
The OHCHR said in a press statement that the five-member team was travelling to Sudan at the invitation of the Sudanese government. It was due to arrive in the capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday, and then travel to Darfur on Wednesday. 
The statement said Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan had sought assurances from the Sudanese government that the team "could visit any place it wanted, talk to anyone it wished, and be assured of security during its tour".
It noted that the team had already spent nine days in neighbouring Chad, interviewing Sudanese refugees who had fled the conflict in Darfur. The refugees had raised "serious allegations of a troubling nature", which had been submitted to Ramcharan in a report. 
In an interview with IRIN on 2 April, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland described what was happening in Darfur as one of the world's "most forgotten and perhaps most neglected humanitarian crises" with "scorched-earth tactics" being employed there. He called for an immediate ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, a restoration of law and order, and prompt and generous donor support.
Sulaf al-Din Salih, the commissioner-general of Sudan's Humanitarian Aid Commission, subsequently rejected such accusations about Darfur, telling IRIN that the international community had been misinformed about the reality there. The accusations, he added during an interview in Khartoum, were part of a "political campaign" against the Sudanese government and people. 
The Darfur conflict, which erupted early last year between the Sudanese government and militias allied to it on the one hand and two rebel groups on the other hand, has displaced about one million people while some 110,000 others have fled to Chad.

The United States has given the UN World Food Programme (WFP) US $6.5 million towards the reconstruction of roads and dykes in southern Sudan.
WFP said the US contribution was part of a $19.4 million project to effect the emergency repair of 1,000 km of roads. The roads to be repaired include the a 580-km corridor from Kaya, on the border with Uganda, to Rumbek (in Al-Buhayrat State). Also to benefit from this project is the 300-km stretch from Narus on the Kenyan border to Juba (in Bahr al-Jabal State), it said. 
The project also covers the repair of 100 dykes "directly linked to the road infrastructure". 
Tesema Negash, the WFP country director for Kenya, who also supervises activities in southern Sudan, said in a statement on Wednesday: "We  are  very  grateful to the United  States for this generous contribution. The rehabilitation of roads is key to the future development of southern Sudan, which in peacetime depends to a great degree on the existence of a proper road network."
The repair of the road system will deliver a number of benefits, according to the statement. It will reduce the cost of delivering food aid to the population in southern Sudan. Moreover, 80 per cent of the 7,000 mt of food aid being delivered to southern Sudan every month is transported by air; using road transport "will cut the cost at least 40 per cent".
Improved roads would also result in other economic benefits, such as allowing for easier movement of people and goods, thereby allowing for locally produced goods to reach markets at a lower cost, said WFP
Equally important, adequate roads would facilitate the return and reintegration of refugees and  internally displaced persons, who were likely to return once a peace deal was signed, it added. 
"We are very proud to cooperate with WFP in such a decisive project for  the  future of  southern Sudan," the statement said, quoting Roger Winter, the assistant administrator of USAID. "This is a first indication of the dividend peace will bring to the people of Sudan." 
Repairing dykes will protect the roads and help to promote agricultural production in an area where regular flooding severely affects crops.
WFP had so far raised $14.4 million, "but a further US $3 million is urgently needed to complete the works before the expected start of the rainy season at the end of May", it said.
The statement noted that $5 million worth of equipment, including graders, excavators, bulldozers, compactors, tipper trucks and tractors, had already been purchased for the project and were being used on sites. "Once the project is completed, the equipment will be donated to the new Sudanese authority for the south, for the further reconstruction of the regional road network," it added.

The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan's western region of Darfur has risen to one million, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
In a report issued in New York, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the situation in Darfur was compounded by shortfalls of shelter, clean water, food and health-care supplies. It warned that "all funds contributed for relief efforts in Darfur so far have already been exhausted", noting that the UN expected to revise its humanitarian appeal for the region beyond the US $115 million requested earlier this month.
OCHA quoted the UN's country team in Sudan as reporting that shelter materials for IDPs in Darfur were now "completely exhausted". Many IDP  settlements were in remote areas without access to water points and therefore needed "urgent emergency water deliveries". The team warned that this situation, coupled with the problem of overcrowding, was "likely" to lead to outbreaks of cholera, meningitis, measles and diarrhoea.
According to the report, existing food stocks were dwindling and would "need urgent replenishment". It noted that IDPs and vulnerable groups which had access to land would need to prepare it for cultivation before the rainy season started in June. "If humanitarian groups cannot urgently provide farmers with seeds and tools for planting, food insecurity and thus humanitarian needs will increase," it said.
Darfur was also affected by a health crisis, which was compounded by insufficient supplies of essential drugs, OCHA added. Children under the age of five years, minors separated from their families, and pregnant and lactating women were among the most vulnerable people among the IDPs as well as the resident population. Infant and maternal mortality had risen sharply.
Meanwhile, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced a contribution of an additional 30,000 mt of emergency food aid, worth US $27.1 million, to the World Food Programme for distribution in Darfur. 
USAID said in a statement that its announcement followed the declaration (on 11 April) of a ceasefire between the government and two rebel groups in Darfur, "which includes a pledge to guarantee safe passage of humanitarian aid to Darfur".

Mediators are trying to break an impasse at the Sudanese peace talks currently under way in Naivasha, Kenya, under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an IGAD source involved in the proceedings said.
Peace negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) hit a deadlock over power-sharing and the application of shari'ah in the capital, Khartoum, and IGAD "is trying to come up with a compromise proposal", said the source.
As a symptom of the difficulties facing the negotiators, Sudanese First Vice-President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha, the head of the government delegation to the talks, returned to Khartoum on Saturday for consultations with his government over the talks, according to a Sudanese government official. 
"Since there were no planned meetings scheduled between the vice-president and Mr [and leader of the SPLM/A, John] Garang, he left for Khartoum for consultations," said Ahmad Dirdiery, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in Nairobi. 
Dirdiery told IRIN that the negotiators were awaiting an "IGAD proposal" to break the log-jam. "All hinges on this new proposal on power-sharing", he said, also noting that the application of shari'ah in Khartoum remained "the main bone of contention". 
The SPLM/A reportedly opposes this, maintaining that since the city is the national capital, "shari'ah should not be applied in Khartoum", according to the IGAD source.
Dirdiery, however, said the two sides had already agreed that shari'ah would continue to be applied in north of the country, "and Khartoum is in the north". "We have given them guarantees that shari'ah application in Khartoum will not adversely affect the religious rights of non-Muslims. We are still working on finding a workable solution to this," he stressed.
The IGAD source told IRIN that the two sides were broadly in agreement, "but a few issues remain, and we are hopeful that we will find a compromise acceptable to both sides". 
Since January - with a three-week break for a Muslim pilgrimage - the talks have been bogged down by negotiations over the future status of three disputed areas, namely the Nuba mountains, southern Blue Nile and oil-rich Abyei. On 19 March, US Senator John Danforth put forward a proposal calling for a referendum that offers Abyei the choice of joining southern Sudan or remaining in the north, and detailing the sharing of oil revenue. Still the talks remained deadlocked.
Meanwhile President George Bush was due to report to the US Congress on the progress of the talks, as required by the Sudan Peace Act. International news reports quoted US officials as saying it was likely that Bush would declare the two sides to be negotiating in good faith and hence not impose any sanctions on the government.
On Tuesday, the European Commission donated ?1.5 million euros (US $1.8 million) to support the talks. It said in a statement: "After decades with on-off dialogues, the negotiations between the government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA/M) seem to have reached the home stretch."

Representatives of the Sudanese government and two rebel movements in the western province of Darfur met in Chad on Tuesday to discuss a political solution to the 15-month old conflict that has forced more than 800,000 people to flee their homes. 
A Sudanese diplomat told IRIN by telephone from the Chadian capital N'djamena that the talks were due to begin on in the presence of Chadian President Idriss Deby. Official sources told IRIN that the negotiations finally started behind closed doors on Tuesday night. 
Deby's government mediated an earlier round of talks between the two sides which led to the declaration of a 45-day truce that took effect on 11 April. 
The ceasefire was supposed to allow relief agencies to gain immediate access to more than 700,000 people who have been internally displaced within Darfur. 
However, the rebels have accused government forces of violating the truce and international relief agencies have complained about continuing difficulties in gaining access to government-controlled areas of Darfur. 
However The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced on Tuesday that the Sudanese authorities have granted permission for a UN human rights fact-finding team to visit Khartoum and the Darfur region. The five-person team would be travelling to the area within the next few days to complete the work which they had set out to do when they left for Chad on the 5th of April. The team had been in Chad from 5 to 14 April where they interviewed people who fled Darfur. 
More than 110,000 other civilians from Darfur have fled as refugees into eastern Chad. 
The first round of talks at which UN and western observers were present, focussed exclusively on achieving a humanitarian ceasefire. 
This new round, which will only be witnessed by the Chadian mediation team and observers from the African Union, is designed to tackle the thorny political issues that must be resolved in order to achieve a lasting peace settlement. 
The two rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, say they are fighting the army of President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and its Arab militia allies in order to force the government to do more for the economic and social development of Darfur. 
The poor and arid region one and a half times the size of Germany, is home to six million people, most of whom are nomads and subsistence farmers. 
However, the conflict has been marked by a struggle for land as the Sahara desert creeps south, with Arab nomads pitched against black tribesmen. According to relief agencies and human rights groups, the government forces have conducted a "scorched earth" policy which has forced many black communities to abandon their villages and their land. 
There have been almost daily reports of atrocities against civilians. The United Nations last month described war in Darfur as the "world's worst humanitarian crisis." 
The Sudanese diplomat told IRIN that the government was "keen on negotiations and keen to find a solution for the people of Darfur." 
He said the government delegation mainly comprised natives of Darfur province and this was a deliberate move to the team more credibility in the talks. 
But he added that Khartoum suspected the rebel movements of having other "plans." He did not elaborate. 
IRIN was unable to contact representatives of the two rebel movements for comment.

Peace talks resumed this morning in the Chadian capital of Ndjamena between the protagonists of the war in Darfur, the remote western region of Sudan torn by a year of fighting. As referred by sources close to the mediation, the meetings were due to start yesterday, but a delay of the Khartoum government delegation caused a 24-hour postponement of the appointment. The talks in the Chadian capital are being participated by representatives of the Islamic government of Khartoum and the two rebel movements that rose in arms in February 2003: the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) and the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement). The parts will address the modalities for the implementation of the truce undersigned two weeks ago. Based on some declarations released to the press by mediation sources, the sides should also discuss the creation of a commission for the monitoring of the cease-fire (according to some already violated by government forces) and studying of an agenda for discussions on the political aspects of the conflict. Since February 2003 the SLA-M and JEM rose against the Islamic government of Khartoum, accused of neglecting Darfur, because inhabited prevalently by blacks, and financing Arab militants (known as Janjaweed) that for years have caused death and destruction in this zone of Sudan. Based on UN estimates, a year of fighting has resulted in the internal displacement of a million people, 130,000 refugees (all in bordering Chad) and several thousands of victims.

Sudanese authorities today authorised a United Nations mission in Darfur, the western region theatre to over a year of war, to verify human rights violations. The announcement was made this morning in Geneva by José Diaz, spokesman of the UN High Commission for Human Rights. “Let’s hope that our team can depart in the next days”, he told the press. The mission already went at the start of April to Chad, from where it was due to reach neighbouring Darfur. The Islamic government of Khartoum had however denied access to the UN experts, who then went back to Geneva after gathering testimonies among the Sudanese refugees in Chad, where nearly 100-thousand civilians have sought refuge from the violence. UN sources from New York instead referred that Sudan authorities have requested a week postponement of the visit of the UN representative for humanitarian emergencies, the Norwegian Jan Egeland, who in the past weeks had denounced an ethnic cleansing underway in Darfur. Despite the signing of a 45-day truce, reports of ulterior clashes have arrived from the region, where in February 2003 two local rebel movements rose in arms against the military, accusing the government of neglecting the region and arming the Arab militants against the local ‘black’ population. Serious concerns over the critical situation were expressed also by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who speaking in occasion of the commemoration of the Rwandan 1994 genocide, invited the international community to avoid another genocide. The Darfur war has so far claimed an estimated 10-thousand victims, displacing 700-thousand (one million according to other sources) and over 100-thousand refugees among the Africans of the Fur, Zaghawa and Massalit ethnic groups. Preoccupation was expressed also for the risk of a serious famine crisis that could strike the population also next year, if in the next weeks the civilians are not able to return to their villages to sow their fields.

A south Sudanese militia group has vowed to wage all out-war against Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in apparent retaliation for LRA attacks against civilians inside Sudan. 
In a statement issued over the weekend, the Equatoria Defence Force (EDF), a militia group formerly allied to the LRA and the Sudanese government, promised to "take the war against LRA rebels in South Sudan to all their hideouts". 
"We shall smoke LRA rebels in their holes and they will be killed like rats when they run out", said the statement signed by the EDF Secretary General Charles Kisanga. 
Kisanga asked Uganda to help his militia against the LRA. "EDF is appealing to the Ugandan government to help us get rid of this brutal terrorist guerrilla force," he said. "It has been years since UPDF [the Ugandan army] started pursuing LRA in south Sudan, but Uganda can rest assured that EDF has the capacity to do this job in a much shorter time and at a lesser cost if we are afforded the facilities we need to get the job done". 
For 18 years since northern Uganda's insurgency began, the LRA and its leader Joseph Kony have mainly operated out of the regions of Sudan bordering Uganda. After launching attacks against the Ugandan army or civilians in the north, the rebels often retreat back to Sudan where they keep their supplies, according to former LRA captives and other sources. But they have also attacked villages in south Sudan, as they do in Uganda, to loot food and abduct children for forcible recruitment. 
In June 2002 the Uganda government launched Operation Iron Fist, a military effort to rout the rebels, following an agreement with Khartoum that permitted the Ugandan army to enter southern Sudan. The agreement strictly forbids the UPDF from fighting against Kony alongside Sudanese rebel groups. 
The EDF statement followed an interview alleged to have been conducted with Kony by a Sudanese magazine in which he threatened members of the EDF and South Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and promised to burn villages in south Sudan. 
"I want to tell the Sudanese lords to keep away from us because if they attack us as they have done this month [March], we will fight and set their villages on fire," Kony was quoted as saying by the magazine, which is published in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. 
SPLM/A spokesman in Kampala George Machar told IRIN the EDF and SPLM/A were "now in regular joint operations against Kony" and were "days away" from signing an agreement which would merge the two former enemies into a single force under SPLM/A control. "We are together targeting the LRA. It is our duty to our people to destroy these guys wherever we find them," he said. "We really want them wiped out once and for all". 
Machar reiterated that once the peace process between Khartoum and the SPLM/A was in place, and the SPLM/A was part of the government, Kony would no longer be able to use southern Sudan as a rear base for the LRA rebellion.

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

The 14-month conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, has displaced over one million people, in addition to the more than 100,000 who have fled across the border into neighbouring Chad, according to United Nations estimates.
Humanitarian workers in the region say that it is too early to predict the long-term implications of the conflict on either the internally displaced persons (IDPs), the refugees or the host populations in the areas they have fled to. But with many of the IDPs fleeing from the region's best food-producing areas to urban centres, the aid workers say, food shortages and dependency on food aid will be an ongoing problem. 
"Even if the displaced were able to return to their farms immediately to avail themselves of the current planting season, they would still be dependent on food aid until the end of 2004," said Laura Melo, spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP). 
If, on the other hand, this year's April to June planting season is missed, the next harvest of staples like millet and sorghum will not be available until the end of 2005.

Long term displacement 

Despite the 45-day renewable ceasefire signed last week between the government and Darfur's two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimated that 20,000 Janjawid militiamen - who it said are generally regarded as responsible for mass displacement, killing, raping and looting - remain at large in the region. 
Since the ceasefire came into effect late on Sunday, there have already been a number of reports of violations. On 12 April, a herdsman from the village of Deja, several kilometres from Nyala in Southern Darfur, was killed by Janjawid after insisting on collecting his herd, the UN reported. The entire village, about 300 people, tried to flee to the nearby Kalma camp to seek protection, but were turned back by police. 
In Western Darfur, attacks and harassment by Janjawid have also been reported to the UN. On 15 April, an elderly woman was attacked while collecting fodder outside Adramata camp for IDPs, while in Riyad five girls "disappeared" after venturing outside another camp. 
Jamal Yusuf Idris, the government's Humanitarian Aid Commissioner in Nyala, the capital of Southern Darfur State, said all the IDPs would go home immediately if the conflict ended. "If the war stopped, all of them are farmers, they would go home." 
Human Rights Watch (HRW)  said in a report issued 2 April - before the Ndjamena ceasefire agreement - that it was unlikely that Darfur's IDPs would be able to return to their farms to plant any time soon. "More bad times await the displaced. They will probably have no crops to look forward to in 2004," it said. 
"It is highly unlikely that the displaced communities will be able to return home and plant, given the continuing war and insecurity permeating the rural areas, the scale of the destruction of their shelters and water systems, and the lack of seeds and tools," HRW added.
Since then, the ceasefire agreement has been signed and all three parties have agreed to facilitate the return of the IDPs to their homes, to put in place "adequate protection measures" for them and to ensure that "their property will be restored or their losses compensated". However,HRW warned, in another statement released on Wednesday, that in the absence of immediate and rigorous international monitoring, it was highly unlikely that this would happen. 
"Without the international spotlight, the Sudanese government is unlikely to disarm and disband its Arab militia, re-establish security in the rural areas, or guarantee the safety of displaced persons who wish to return home for planting season - crucial benchmarks for any improvement in the situation," said Jemera Rone, a Sudan researcher at HRW. 
Without protection and greatly increased humanitarian assistance, displaced civilians ran the risk of dying from epidemics and a "man-made famine", she added.

Drought, pests and war in North 

Northern Darfur (home to 1.5 million people), which has been experiencing a drought over the last two decades, as well as desertification of its northern areas, is particularly vulnerable. 
After several years of drought, an expected "bumper harvest" in 2003 was all but ruined in November when grasshoppers descended on key millet-producing areas, according to Bashir Abd al-Rahman, an official with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in al-Fashir, the capital of Northern Darfur State. 
Mass displacement has now added to the state's woes. Conflict in the north has resulted in an estimated 60 percent of villages there being destroyed, burned, or abandoned because of fear of attacks, according to a survey conducted by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in February and March 2004.
Even in undestroyed villages, over 50 percent of households had migrated, ITDG reported, some of them to hide in mountainous areas and others fleeing temporarily to avoid either aerial bombardments or forcible recruitment by the SLA and the JEM.
Many of the IDPs are from the main millet-producing areas of Tawilah, Korma, Kutum and Dar al-Salam and already lost a harvest in 2003. According to ITDG, about 40,000 households Northern Darfur missed the harvest season due to displacement, while many of those who did manage to harvest their crops later lost their food stocks to looters.
Meanwhile, livelihoods in the state are collapsing as market systems and seasonal labour opportunities have been lost due to insecurity, and commercial transport has all but ground to a halt. 
All markets in the Jabal Si area and most markets in Kabkabiyah had closed, ITDG reported, noting that crop failure last year had rendered most people dependent on the markets for food. On one hand, grain prices had risen to as high as 10 goats for one sack of millet, from one to two goats per sack before the conflict escalated. On the other hand,  livestock prices had dropped as people tried to sell their animals off before they were looted, it added.
Much of the region's infrastructure and thousands of fruit trees - a key source of food - had also been destroyed. In Kabkabiyah alone, over 150 irrigation pumps had been lost, damaged or looted from farms, and 35 shallow wells destroyed, said ITDG. 
The combination of conflict, drought and pests had been overwhelming, Bashir told IRIN. "The majority of the IDPs are destitute. It is difficult to find an income. Without an income, and if they are unable to cultivate, how can they feed themselves?"
Host communities which had been sharing food with IDPs were also running out of food, he said. The UN has received reports of as many as 20 families being accommodated by a single host. 
"Survival in Darfur is a delicate balance with limited room for margin. While most communities have developed complex coping mechanisms to deal with a single bad season of drought or failed harvest, a second failed, ruined, burned or looted harvest can push families to the edge of survival," HRW warned.

Changed demography 

At a recent meeting of humanitarian actors in the national capital, Khartoum, a participant surmised that less than 50 percent of the IDPs would return to the places they had fled from. Instead they would go to irrigated settlements closer to the Nile river, move to urban centres such as Khartoum, or remain on the peripheries of towns in Darfur, he said.
Over the last decade, Darfur has been experiencing a slow migration towards urban centres, which may have been drastically accelerated by the conflict, according to observers.
Humanitarian actors who spoke to IRIN in Darfur said the numbers of returnees were impossible to predict at this early stage, but added that there was a danger of the growing settlements or "camps" on the edges of towns becoming permanent, with many of the IDPs remaining dependent on aid.
Speaking before Sunday's ceasefire agreement, Sulaf al-Din Salih, the national Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, told IRIN in Khartoum that people were already able to return to their homes. 
"People are already going back home. People have the ability to assess the situation, whether they can go back or not. This has been done through local mechanisms or tribal systems. They make an agreement between themselves that they are going to protect this process of return, that no one is going to attack them. So whether there is a ceasefire or not, this process has already started," he said.
He added that extra army and police had been sent to Darfur to maintain law and order, and had achieved a good degree of success. "We think that things are improving quite a lot."
But humanitarian agencies say it is highly unlikely that people will return without tangible guarantees for their safety. 
Meanwhile, aid agencies are under pressure to pay for and provide assistance in the urban centres that people have fled to, but not in their home areas, aid workers told IRIN.

Up to 30,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced by fighting into the garrison town of Malakal in Upper Nile, Sudan, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the capital, Khartoum.
The figure of 25,000 to 30,000 of such internally displaced persons (IDPs) was likely to be a "conservative figure", Nadia el Maaroufi, an official with OCHA told IRIN on Friday. 
A regional analyst told IRIN that up to 75,000 people were believed to have been displaced by conflict in the nearby Shilluk kingdom, which pits government-backed Nuer and Shilluk militias against the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).
The vast majority of the IDPs were women and children, who had arrived in the town with scant personal belongings, reporting looting, burning of villages, killing and rape, especially around Tonga, about 75 km west of Malakal, according to Nadia. The men are believed to have scattered into "the bush" to protect their cattle.
An eyewitness reported that Nuer militiamen had shot men and women in Tonga on 22 March, and then laid landmines around a man's body to prevent its burial. 
The Shilluk kingdom became destabilised after 25 October 2003, when the leader of a government-allied militia, Lam Akol, re-defected to the SPLM/A. Not all of Akol's forces, known as the SPLM/A-United, were happy with the move, with the result that an internal split and a struggle for control of the area ensued.
Fighting between the SPLM/A-United and a number of Shilluk and Nuer militias took place, resulting in the burning of villages, including Nielwag and Popwojo near Tonga, and Alaki, the village of the Shilluk king. A steady flow of IDPs has been arriving in Malakal since January 2004, according to OCHA.
At the end of March local authorities in the region reportedly advised people residing on the west bank of the Nile river, around Tonga, and between Malakal and Kaka, about 140 km to the north, to leave their homes because of  fighting. A "massive influx" of IDPs had then arrived in Malakal, many from the west bank area, Nadia confirmed. They had reportedly fled areas such as Detang as their villages were being burned.
At the same time, eyewitnesses reported seeing about 800 Nuer militia crossing the Nile in Malakal, moving towards the west bank area, armed with light weapons. A machine-gun boat was seen carrying wounded militia and soldiers on 2 April.
By early April, about 6,000 of the IDPs were staying in four camps outside Malakal, known as Obel 1, 2 and 3 and Kanal, said Nadia. A further 900 were camped on the west bank of the Nile river, while the rest were in Malakal town, staying with friends and relatives.
The IDPs on the west bank are now reportedly hiding 20 km inland from the Nile river, and are isolated from water, food, shelter and health care, according to OCHA. Shilluk leaders have reported that they are subjected to militia attacks whenever they try to approach the river, while local authorities are preventing them from entering Malakal town.
UN officials had been denied permission to visit the IDPs on the west bank, Nadia told IRIN, adding that the humanitarian needs of neither the IDPs nor the host populations were being catered for. "The relatives the IDPs are staying with are barely able to feed themselves," she said.
"The focus is so much on [the western region of] Darfur that the people in Malakal are being lost in the shadows," commented a regional analyst. Agencies had non-food items sitting in warehouses that should have been distributed to the IDPs weeks ago, he added.
Sudanese regular forces reportedly withdrew from the Shilluk kingdom in early April. The situation had calmed since then, the regional analyst told IRIN, apart from fighting reported on 9 April around Popwojo. But the militia and government forces were now said to be moving back into the kingdom, especially around Tonga, he added.

The United Nations communicated the suspension of aid operations in the southern regions of Sudan, due to the deterioration of security conditions. From their headquarters in Nairobi (Kenya), the UN representatives referred that in the past month over 50-thousand people were forced to abandon their homes in South Sudan due to the continuing clashes between the Khartoum government forces and the rebels of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), despite the cease-fire in vigour and peace negotiations underway in Nairobi nearing a conclusive phase. The UN representatives specified that the most violent attacks were those conducted by Arab militant groups close to the government of Khartoum that are conducting actions against civilians. “Villages were burned, pillaging and rapes continue, schools and hospitals were destroyed and the structure of the international ‘Nyilwak’ NGO was set on fire during the attacks”, indicates a statement issued by the UN offices in the Kenyan capital, adding that for security reasons both UN workers and the NGO’s engaged in ‘Operation Lifeline’ can no longer enter the conflict zones. The fighting between the government and rebels has devastated the southern sector of Sudan for twenty years, claiming over 2-million lives and internally displacing 3-million; but now that the conflict appears to be nearing a conclusive phase a new war front opened in the remote western region of Darfur (along border with Chad), where local groups rose in arms against the Arab militants supported by the government of Khartoum, which according to UN representatives are conducting an ‘ethnic cleansing’ against the local black population

A Uganda-Sudan joint ministerial commission, established to normalise bilateral relations, opened a consultative meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on Thursday with ministers from both countries talking of renewed cooperation.
Officials said a draft agreement would be signed by the end of the meeting on Friday, which would pave the way for regular consultations on issues ranging from regional security to tariffs and trade.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il told the meeting that with a peace deal being negotiated in Kenya between his government and the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) just days away from being signed, "the current agenda of refugees, conflict and displacement will give way to a new agenda of development". "We are keen enough to resume full fledged cooperation in all fields," he stressed.
Ugandan First Deputy Prime Minister Moses Ali and acting Foreign Minister Tom Butime attended. Speaking to IRIN after the opening of the meeting, Ali called the conference "a landmark in reviving the peace between the two countries in the form of a regular consultation". He said the  meeting was a renewal of consultations that had begun last year. "There'll be a draft framework of the cooperation agreement. They will discuss the details and then sign a reactivation," he said.
Throughout the 1990s, relations between Sudan and Uganda were strained. Sudan accused Uganda of arming and training the SPLM/A while Uganda countered by saying Sudan was supporting the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) to fight the Kampala government. 
In 1993, the two neighbours severed diplomatic ties as relations deteriorated further. But in 1999, they signed a peace pact in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, with each officially renouncing support for the other's rebels. This led to the restoration of diplomatic relations in 2001. 
To curtail rebel activities on their common border, the two governments signed Operation Iron Fist in June 2002, allowing the Ugandan army access to southern Sudan to pursue LRA rebels there. Iron Fist has since been renewed every six months, most recently in March this year.
Even so, relations remained tense as Uganda periodically claimed to have evidence that some elements in the Sudanese army were still offering logistical support and weapons to LRA fighters. Uganda also maintained that Sudan was not trying hard enough to stop the LRA using its territory as a rear base.
The LRA has been fighting the government for 18 years, killing thousands of people, displacing at least 1.5 million, and abducting more than 20,000 children to fight in its ranks or be used as sex slaves. On Wednesday, the UN Security Council condemned the LRA's activities.
"The ministerial process has been reactivated to sort out problems and to dispel suspicions. If you meet regularly, you have fewer chances for suspicion because all grievances are being regularly aired," Ali told IRIN.

Sudan watchers have welcomed the renewable 45-day ceasefire deal signed between Darfur's two rebel groups and the Sudanese government on 8 April, but the situation on the ground has prevented some observers from being overly optimistic. 
Under the deal, the parties agreed to meet within two weeks to "negotiate a definitive settlement of the conflict", to guarantee humanitarian access to the region and to "facilitate the return of the refugees and displaced" to their homes on a voluntary basis. 
Both parties agreed to "ensure that all armed groups under their control" complied with the agreement, while the government stated that it "shall commit itself to neutralise the armed militias" in the region. 
However, observers are urging caution, not least because the details of how and when the armed militias known as the Janjawid are to be "neutralised" have yet to be outlined. 
The Janjawid who have been held responsible for mass displacements and what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has referred to in a report issued on 2 April as "crimes against humanity", are neither signatories to the agreement nor specifically referred to in the text. 
Indeed local and national authorities in Sudan do not generally acknowledge the Janjawid and their actions, referring instead to isolated incidents of "banditry" over which, they say, they have no control. 
Sulaf al-Din Salih, the commissioner-general of Sudan's Humanitarian Aid Commission, told IRIN in an interview in Khartoum on 2 April that the international community had been misinformed about the reality in Darfur. 
"It is not only the Janjawid. People forget about the other groups called Tora Bora and others as well. Definitely the government did not have enough forces to control all the area. So these groups have committed atrocities and have gone beyond the normal security or military operations...[but] we have succeeded in controlling all these groups to a very great extent," he said. 
Meanwhile, the militiamen remain at large. Just a day after the ceasefire came into effect on 12 April, a Janjawid attack was reported outside Kalma camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in southern Darfur. 

Mass displacement 

Ceasefire or no ceasefire, the humanitarian situation in Southern Darfur State is now worse than it has ever been, with 140,000 IDPs and the whole of the state affected, except for the extreme east and south. 
During the first week of April alone, almost 20,000 IDPs arrived in towns from rural areas, while in Kas, in the northwestern corner of the state, the number of IDPs rose from 20,000 to 35,000, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported this week. 
The current trend is expected to continue as large bands of Janjawid descend on the south from Northern and Western Darfur states, moving towards the Nyala and Sharaya areas, according to UN officials familiar with the situation. 
Reasons for the deteriorating security remain unclear, but may be related to the traditional migration of Arab nomadic pastoralists migrating southwards from the north between November and April in search of water and pasture. 
Neither the UN nor other agencies have managed to map in any detail the areas depopulated as a result of militia activity, but according to humanitarian sources in the area, a clear trend is emerging of non-Arabs being hounded out of rural areas into urban centres. The Fur and Masalit are the main targets in southern Darfur, while small numbers of Dinka from southern Sudan are also affected. 
Many of the attacks take on a similar pattern, eyewitnesses told IRIN. Hundreds - some say thousands - of Janjawid riding horses and camels arrive in an area from different directions before engaging in a major offensive. Rich from looting thousands of head of cattle, and carrying modern communications equipment, they easily coordinate their attacks. 
Before and after burning the non-Arab villages (or sections of such villages) collectively accused of harbouring rebels, they often loiter, armed with automatic rifles, around water sources. Here they can intimidate and rape local women, loot their animals, and destroy key infrastructure, humanitarian workers and eyewitnesses told IRIN. 
"The destruction of water sources, burning of crops and theft of livestock are a key element in the government's campaign. For obvious reasons, cutting off all sources of food and water to civilians in their homes will inevitably lead to their displacement - or starvation," HRW said in its report. 
The Janjawid have sometimes been accompanied by the Sudanese army or have travelled in army vehicles; often they wear army uniforms, according to eyewitnesses. "Whenever these people [the Janjawid] come and attack villages, you expect that once people have resisted the army will come. That's the scenario recently," an MP from Darfur told IRIN. 
"They [the militias and army] tie them [up], they torture them, trying to get information about the rebellion. Sometimes you can be killed if you are suspected, or if you try to resist, you can be tied, you can have your hand broken or legs, you can be whipped - all kinds of torture, beatings and shootings," he added. "They don't allow anyone who is a boy, anyone from 13 to 20, [to go free], they [the Janjawid] kill them straight away when they find them." 
The inhabitants of the villages have no choice but to flee. Even then, thousands are subjected to further attacks on the road, with more looting and violence at Janjawid "checkpoints", the IDPs said. 

Increased violence and rape 

Sitting in a tiny, makeshift straw hut in Kalma camp just outside Nyala town, 27-year-old Ajoiya, a member of the Fur community, recalled how she and her baby took refuge in a mosque in Kaileik, about 50 km southwest of Kas. "They [the Janjawid] came at night, they pulled back the bedclothes to see if the women had babies. If there was no baby, they would take them away to rape them," she told IRIN. 
Up to 30 women in Kaileik had been taken by groups of armed Janjawid and raped each day before they fled to Kalma camp in Nyala, she said. "About 20 of my relatives were taken away. We were crying out for rescue, but no one came," she said. 
Civilians from 21 villages in the Shetaya and Kaileik areas, in rural Kas, had descended on Kaileik village in early March after being attacked by the Janjawid and the military. 
Ajoiya's two sisters-in-law, one of their babies and her brother were shot dead as they fled their attackers, she told IRIN. "I lost everything I had: goats, 30 kg of groundnuts, blankets and donkeys." 
Over a two-week period, 200 men from the villages also "disappeared", she said. 
"They [the Janjawid] would gather the people every day, men on one side, women on the other. Men were selected randomly, some of them were beaten, some were killed. They used to take them away to kill them," one man, who spoke anonymously, told IRIN.
"We are civilians, we don't know why we are being attacked," said another. 

Obstacles to aid 

Local authorities in Nyala are quick to draw attention to the humanitarian needs of the IDPs. They urgently needed proper shelter before the rains began in June, medical assistance and in some cases food, they told IRIN. 
But the provision of aid to the victims of the Darfur conflict is fraught with difficulty, according to humanitarian workers. 
"The humanitarian community has very little overall understanding of the situation, which makes it very difficult to plan for and respond to the crisis," the UN reported at the end of March. 
While a number of agencies are awaiting permission to open offices in Southern Darfur, there were no international NGOs operating on the crisis in the south, humanitarian sources told IRIN in Nyala last week. 
Compounding the absence of agencies was a late and inadequate response to the crisis, a lack of knowledge about the victims' real needs and the unwillingness of local commercial truckers to transport aid to many areas for security reasons, a regional analyst told IRIN. 
A further dilemma is centred on the role that humanitarian aid agencies should play in the current conflict. While they are mandated to provide assistance to the needy, some aid workers are wondering whether by doing so they are perpetuating the problem of displacement. 
"There is a lack of overall policy on the approach [to aid]. The reasons for the creation of the crisis should be reflected in the response. There is no reflection on how to address this crisis," said one regional analyst. 
Responses so far had been oriented towards the delivery of "goods" in areas to which the IDPs had fled, whereas they should have been focusing on lobbying the Sudanese government to provide protection, he said. "In Southern Darfur there has been no local [government] response to the security situation at all. The Janjawid have been written a blank cheque," he asserted. 
On the other hand, the needs are such that without some immediate assistance many more thousands will die, some humanitarian workers fear. 
"IDPs should not pay the price for a conceptual dilemma about humanitarian assistance. We should act," Alexandre Liebeskind, an official from the International Committee of the Red Cross told IRIN. "You have the survival line. We want to give them [the IDPs] the dignity line, where you have enough space to live with your family, you can wash, you have certain structures to protect your family, you have basic medical services and you don't have to live on the move," he added. 

Government responsibly 

Efforts to help vulnerable populations in Darfur had been thwarted for months, according to HRW, which reported that "between October 2003 and January 2004, the Sudanese government almost entirely obstructed international assistance to displaced civilians in Darfur - and provided virtually no aid from its own coffers". 
International aid workers often still have to wait weeks before being granted visas to enter Sudan, and some areas have been inaccessible for weeks or even months. 
At the local level, government humanitarian aid commissioners (HACs) in each state are officially responsible for the IDPs' welfare, but they often lack both resources and power. 
The HAC in Nyala, Jamal Yusuf Idris, told IRIN that the authorities were responsible for providing food, health care, some shelter and security in the camps "if they get the money". 
"But the UN has more money than our government", he said. "I will ask the NGOs to provide proper shelter materials in Kurma camp [near Nyala] before I request the government to do so." He added that 500 mt of food had already been delivered to the camps from Khartoum, but said he had no money to assist the IDPs. 
Meanwhile, the thousands of displaced in Kalma "camp" - which has no sanitation or proper shelter - say the authorities keep promising aid but not actually delivering anything. 
Confined within Kalma, with hundreds of Janjawid camped nearby, they say they cannot even consider returning to their homes. "In order [for us] to go back, there should be no Janjawid. There should be law and order, police organised to provide protection," an elder in the camp told IRIN. 
"We have been attacked by people who are armed by the government, wearing official uniforms, with instructions from the government. The ultimate responsibility lies with the government," he stressed.

Breaking a long silence, the rebel leader of the LRA (lord’s Resistance Army) – responsible for atrocities and crimes against the population of North Uganda – apparently released an interview in which he accused Kampala government troops of cruelty and threatened the life of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Joseph Kony, for 18 years at the head of an armed gang made up for the most part by child-soldiers, apparently used Sudan's The Referendum magazine – published by exiles of South Sudan in Nairobi (Kenya) - to issue a rare public statement of his desire to "liberate" northern Uganda and rule according to the 10 Commandments. The ‘Reuters’ agency today releases parts of the interview. “President Museveni cannot talk peace, he is (a) killer and he wanted to kill me by all means. I have asked the lords of the LRA to kill Museveni”, Kony said, referring to his commanders. The leader of the rebels, that move throughout North Uganda and have bases in neighbouring South Sudan, said that he would not speak to the Ugandan President over the telephone for fear the army would use the call to locate his position. Always according to Reuters, the interview was conducted March 6 in the city of Juba, stronghold of government forces in South Sudan. Kony, who is seldom photographed and has talked to the press very rarely during his 18-year war, said he had defied pressure from the Sudanese authorities not to speak to the media to give the interview, conducted by one of his former guards. If this should be true, it is yet another confirmation of the links between the LRA and Islamic authorities of Sudan, also because Kony declares to have visited a Sudan military structure in the capital Khartoum no later than July 2002. The government of President Omar el Bashir however always denied giving any support to the LRA, instead accusing Uganda of supporting the separatist rebellion of South Sudan. In the interview Kony claimed to be combating to liberate the Acholi tribes of North Uganda from the oppression of the South (i.e. Kampala), but in reality the Acholi are the main victims of the sanguinary LRA aggressions. Due to the relentless attacks and raids against villages over a million people are living in critical conditions in displaced camps set up by authorities, giving way to a serious humanitarian emergency; an estimated 100-thousand people have been killed, over 25-thousand children have been abducted and forced to enrol in the rebel lines or in the case of girls, forced to be concubines or slaves. 

Political negotiations to end the rebellion in Sudan's western Darfur region will begin in the Chadian capital N'djamena next week, Ahmad Allami, the spokesman of the Chadian mediation team, said on Wednesday. 
Allami told IRIN by telephone from N'djamena that talks about a political settlement to the 14-month-old conflict would begin on 20 April. 
Last week the Sudanese government and the two rebel movements in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) agreed to 45-day ceasefire at their first round of talks in N'djamena. 
The truce is designed to allow relief agencies rapid access to more than 700,000 people in Darfur affected by the fighting. A further 110,000 have fled as refugees into eastern Chad. 
Allami said the ceasefire, which took effect on Sunday, was holding well, despite US allegations that it had already been violated by Sudanese government forces and their Arab militia allies. 
"No formal complaint has been lodged," Allammi said. However, he admitted that the mediation team had been told of a "skirmish" that took place on Monday during which two people were slightly wounded. 
Allami said the US allegations could refer to the period between last Thursday, when the ceasefire was agreed, and Sunday when it actually took effect. 
The ceasefire was agreed at a first round of talks in N'djamena between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebels which focused exclusively on humanitarian issues. 
Human Rights Watch issued a statement on Wednesday welcoming the ceasefire, but expressing concern that no mechanism had been established to monitor its implementation. 
Jemera Rone, the Sudan researcher of the New York-based advocacy group, said: "The absence of a monitoring component is a striking defect given that the looming humanitarian crisis is the result of gross human rights violations committed by the government and its Arab Janjaweed militias." 
Human Rights Watch also expressed concern that the government might manipulate the ceasefire "so that displaced people are forced to stay in government-sponsored camps and be prevented from returning home to farm their lands." 
In broad terms the conflict pits African blacks in Darfur against lighter skinned Arab residents of the semi-arid region. 
Human Rights Watch said: "Some reports indicate that rival ethnic groups of Arab extraction are settling the villages and lands from which African residents were violently evicted."

The Sudanese government and two rebel movements in the country's western Darfur region have agreed to a 45-day ceasefire to allow humanitarian assistance to reach several hundred thousand people affected by the fighting. 
The ceasefire is due to come into force on Sunday. It was agreed on Thursday night after two days of talks in N'djamena, the capital of neighbouring Chad. 
The ceasefire was signed in the presence of Chadian President Idriss Deby and was immediately welcomed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He had warned only a day earlier that international intervention might be necessary if the two sides could not settle their differences.
A spokesman for Annan said in New York: "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."
The ceasefire agreement represents a breakthrough for Chadian government mediators who spent a week trying to persuade the Sudanese government delegation and representatives of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) to meet face-to-face.
The delegations finally agreed to sit down together on Tuesday night after the Chadian mediators proposed discussing humanitarian issues before moving on to the political agenda.
Rapid progress then followed. The ceasefire agreement was signed after just two days of intensive negotiations.
"The humanitarian ceasefire was a priority, but at the same time it includes political clauses", Ahmad Alammi, the spokesman of the Chadian mediation team, told IRIN on Friday.
The deal includes an agreement to release prisoners of war and other detainees arrested as a result of the 14-month-old conflict, to stop laying mines and committing acts of sabotage and had pledged allow the free movement of people and goods.
Darfur,an arid region one and a half times the size of Germany, has been a virtual no-go area for relief agencies in recent months as a result of Sudanese government restrictions.
According to the United Nations, 750,000 of its six million inhabitants have been internally displaced by the conflict, while a further 110,000 have sought refuge in Chad.
The ceasefire agreement commits both sides to rapidly facilitating the access of humanitarian assistance to those in need. The 45-day  truce will be automatically renewed upon its expiry unless one of the parties to it raises objections.
Allammi said that the Sudanese government and rebel delegations had agreed to meet again in N'djamena within two weeks to discuss a political settlement.
The SLA and JEM are demanding a better economic and social deal for Darfur, which they say has been neglected by the government in Khartoum.
Human rights activists and relief agencies have accused  Sudanese President Omar Hassan El-Bashir of using a "scorched earth campaign" in the Darfur fighting. They have accused the government armed forces and their Arab militia allies of systematically burning and looting the villages of  black tribes suspected of supporting the rebel movements. 
The rape and killing of civilians has become commonplace in the conflict.
The Sudanese government and rebel delegations arrived in N'djamena on March 30 to start peace talks, but they  failed to meet for the following week because Khartoum objected to the presence of international observers. 
Allammi said the issue was finally resolved by a compromise. 
Observers from the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, the United States and the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue would attend discussions on humanitarian issues, the Chadian mediator said.
However, only observers from the African Union would be allowed to monitor the political negotiations.
The UN has described the Darfur conflict as the world's "worst humanitarian crisis". 

The government of Khartoum has allegedly signed a ceasefire with the rebels of Darfur during the negotiations underway in the Chadian capital N’Djamena to end the year-long conflict in the remote western region of Sudan. “They signed a humanitarian ceasefire in N’Djamena last night for the opening up of aid corridors so that aid can be distributed to those in need,” Najeeb al-Kheir Abdul Wahab, state minister for foreign affairs, told the British news agency ‘Reuters’. Wahab added that the ceasefire would take immediate effect, and that it “will be ongoing while the two sides seek to find a political resolution to the conflict”. Speaking before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva on the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda yesterday, Secretary General Kofi Annan touched on the issue of the conflict in Darfur, saying that the international community “must be ready to act quickly”, using military means if necessary, to allow humanitarian aid to reach the stricken population in the region. Annan recalled the declaration made by a high-ranking UN official who used the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ to describe the situation in Darfur. In February 2003 JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) and SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement) rose up in arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, which they accuse of neglecting Darfur because it is inhabited mostly by blacks, and of financing militia of Arab predators (known as Janjaweed), who have wreaked havoc in this part of the country for years. The UN estimates that several thousand people have died since the onset of violence, which has created a million internally displaced people and 130,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad. The international body has decided to send an urgent mission to Darfur to examine the hypothesis of serious abuses against the civilian population in what other international officials have described as one of the most serious humanitarian crises on the planet

US President George Bush on Wednesday urged the Sudanese government to "immediately stop local militias from committing atrocities against the local population" in Darfur, western Sudan, and to provide humanitarian aid agencies with unrestricted access to vulnerable people. 
"I condemn these atrocities, which are displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and I have expressed my views directly to President [Omar al] Bashir of Sudan," a statement issued by the US Department of State quoted Bush as saying.
According to Bush, new fighting in Darfur had "opened a new chapter of tragedy in Sudan's troubled history". He said: "For more than two and a half years, the US has been working closely with the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to bring peace to Sudan. This civil war is one of the worst humanitarian tragedies of our time, responsible for the deaths of two million people over two decades."
Warning that the US would "move toward normal relations with the government only when there is a just and comprehensive peace agreement [with] the SPLM", Bush called for "unrestricted access for humanitarian relief throughout Sudan, including Darfur". The Sudanese government, he added, must "not remain complicit in the brutalisation of Darfur".
Meanwhile the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday that during the past week alone nearly 20,000 more people had been rendered internally displaced in the Darfur region as a result of "a campaign of systematic torture and rape by militia groups, which a senior UN official recently linked to ethnic cleansing".
"Truckloads of IDPs [internally displaced persons] from the Dinka ethnic community are also entering Nyala [the capital of Southern Darfur State] itself on a daily basis," OCHA said. "In the town of Kas [about 90 km northeast of Nyala], 15,000 people have arrived in the last week."
OCHA said new arrivals at Kalma camp had reported that Janjawid militias committed "major atrocities" in the Shetaya and Kailiek areas of Darfur, killing and torturing up to 200 men, and systematically raping women. IDPs fleeing Kailiek said they had been forced to pay the militias for permission to leave the area. A separate group of thousands of IDPs, who fled a Janjawid attack on Abu Ajurah on 4 April, said the militia had attacked two of their four convoys, first looting the goods and then raping some of the women.
In Geneva, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern about rights abuses in Darfur. "Such reports leave me with a deep sense of foreboding," he said in an address marking the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. "Whatever terms it uses to describe the situation, the international community cannot stand idle."
See also: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40472&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=SUDAN

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the state of Southern Darfur, western Sudan, say their camp was looted and burned by Arab militiamen on 4 April, but this was denied by a government official in the state capital, Nyala.
The camp, home to thousands of Dinkas - an ethnic group from southern Sudan - is located on the edge of Abu Jura, a village about 40 km from Nyala. Almost all of it was burned by Janjawid - Arab militias - several of the IDPs told IRIN in Nyala. "We are targeted because we are black," a Dinka teacher claimed. "The Janjawid said: 'We don't want any black skin here."
The government Humanitarian Aid Commissioner (HAC) in Nyala, Jamal Yusuf Idris, denied that the Dinka were targeted. He confirmed to IRIN that a group of "Arabs" had burned down houses belonging to members of the Fur ethnic group in Abu Jura and killed eight people, but said it was because the Fur were accused of killing two Arabs. 
"The Dinka were not attacked at all, they have no reason to worry," he said.

Abu Jura was traditionally home to a mixture of communities, with Fur (Darfur means "home of the Fur" in Arabic) Arab and Dinka living side by side. The Dinka include about 200,000 people displaced from neighbouring Bahr al-Ghazal region in the 1980s by government-backed murahilin (nomad) militias. 
Conflict broke out in Abu Jura on 28 March, when armed Janjawid went to the village to attack the Fur, a Dinka sultan [chief], told IRIN in Nyala. "The Janjawid went to the Fur area of the village. First they started shooting, the Fur started running towards the Dinka camp, then they started burning the village," he said. He was not sure how many people were killed, but suggested about 20.
The Janjawid chased the Fur into the Dinka camp, where they killed two of them, he added. "They found two Fur men and killed them: one by shooting, the other with an axe. They hit him with an axe on the neck, he fell down, and then they finished him off with a knife." 
The Janjawid then looted the Dinka camp, taking clothes, beds, watches, goats and donkeys - anything they could find, he said. Those who resisted were beaten up.

Forcible displacement

Between 2 April and 5 April, the majority of the Dinka fled from Abu Jura. They organised 23 trucks, each carrying between 100 and 150 Dinka, to take them and their possessions to Nyala. 
After the initial attack against the Fur, Janjawid had loitered outside the village to intimidate people, the Dinka leaders told IRIN. Arab community leaders intervened and were able to ensure that the Fur and Dinka had access to water, but then the Janjawid threatened the leaders, according to the IDPs.
"The community leaders were told to stop helping us, or they would be classified as supporters of blacks. The Janjawid stayed on the edge of the town close to the water source. By Friday [2 April], we were unable to access water outside the village because of harassment, so we had to leave," said a Dinka teacher.
The Arabs in the village were able to move about and collect water freely, according to the IDPs.
The Janjawid tried to prevent the trucks leaving on 3 April, but "the Arab driver assured them that all the passengers were Dinka, not Fur, so they let them through after looting them," said the chief.
On 4 April, the Janjawid again tried to stop them leaving, but let them pass after the army intervened and escorted them to Nyala. On Monday, however, the trucks were again looted, despite their military escort.

No protection 

By Tuesday, the Dinka were gathered on the southern and northwestern outskirts of Nyala town, in a church compound and a "social institution", where they had practically no access to water.
Last week, several hundred Janjawid equipped with vehicles, Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and modern communications equipment also arrived in Nyala. They have been camped among the trees just outside the town in a locality called Kundawa, where their camels graze freely.
The number of people displaced to Nyala has tripled in the last three weeks, from about 4,000 to 12,000. The frequency and intensity of attacks, the number of people displaced, and human rights abuses in Southern Darfur have been increasing by the day, according to the UN.
In the current climate, the Dinka remain uncertain of where they will be safe. They say that, ideally, they want to return to Bahr al-Ghazal, but have no means of getting there.
A local commissioner in Nyala told them they should not have moved from Abu Jura, accusing them of "complicity" with the Fur because they had fled, the sultan told IRIN. "The Fur are evacuating; if you do the same, you share their views," he quoted the commissioner as saying.
"I think they [the Dinka] need to go back," the HAC in Nyala, Jamal Yusuf Idris, told IRIN.
For now, their most important need is protection. Many of the 15 camps for displaced Dinka in the region, and the homes of tens of thousands of others living in mixed communities, are in areas the Janjawid have been accused of clearing. 
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Sudanese government of recruiting over 20,000 Janjawid, paying, arming and supplying them with uniforms. It has also accused the Sudanese army of conducting joint operations to clear areas inhabited by non-Arabs from the same ethnic groups - mainly Fur, Zaghawah and Masalit - as rebels operating in the region.
"The government of Sudan has denied the existence of this situation and refused to provide protection or assistance to the affected populations of Darfur," HRW reported last week. 
Neimad Bilal, press attache at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, rejected the HRW report. "I have seen it, but it is all lies, nothing but lies," she told IRIN shortly after the report was released.

The Sudanese government and two rebel movements in the western Darfur region held their first face-to-face talks in the Chadian capital N'djamena on Tuesday night, hours after Chadian mediators threatened to give up their attempt to establish a dialogue.
"Things have progressed. Yesterday we had the first direct talks", Ahmad Allammi, the spokesman the Chadian mediation team, told IRIN by telephone from N'djamena.
He expressed hope that the two sides might be able to agree on the terms of a "humanitarian ceasefire" by the end of this week.
On Tuesday, Allammi said Chad had threatened to suspend the peace talks, which were getting nowhere after a week of indirect negotiations during which the mediators shuttled between the hotel rooms of the two sides.
The breakthrough finally came after the Chadian government announced that it was convening a ceremony to announce the formal suspension of its attempts to bring the two sides together.
That was enough to bring the Sudanese government on one side and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on the other to their senses.
Allami, a political advisor to Chadian President Idriss Deby, said neither side wanted to be blamed for the collapse of negotiations, so they finally agreed to meet.
"It worked", he said, adding that that the two sides carried on talking until midnight.
The sticking point that had previously prevented the Sudanese government and rebels from meeting in the same room was Khartoum's refusal to conduct the talks in the presence of international observers.
However, the Chadian mediators managed to overcome this hurdle by persuading the two sides to discuss humanitarian issues first before moving on to the political agenda.
"What convinced the delegations was the agenda. We reversed the order in order to start with the humanitarian issues", Allammi said.
While the rebels wanted international observers to participate in all the discussions - humanitarian and political- the Sudanese government refused to accept the presence of some western delegations, particularly during the political debate. 
However, Allami said the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebels had now agreed to discuss the humanitarian section of the agenda first, including the possibility of a "humanitarian ceasefire."
He told IRIN that they might well reach agreement by the weekend on a temporary truce that would allow some humanitarian aid to reach the victims of the fighting in Darfur, but declined to give further details.
Diplomats from the United Nations, the African Union, the United States, the European Union and the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, will sit on the humanitarian talks.
But Allami said only the African Union representatives would be present during the political negotiations that were due to follow.
On Wednesday morning, the rival Sudanese delegations held internal consultations on a draft ceasefire agreement put to them by the mediators. Allami said they were due to resume face-to-face talks in the afternoon.
The talks are aimed at halting the year-old conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region which has affected more than one million people.
The fighting in this arid area one and a half times the size of Germany has created what the United Nations describes as the "worst humanitarian crisis" in the world. 
More than 110,000 terrified civilians have fled as refugees to neighbouring Chad, while an estimated 750,000 more have been displaced  from their homes within Darfur.
The United Nations, human rights organisations and independent relief agencies operating in the area say the burning and looting of entire villages and the rape and killing of civilians, have become daily occurrences.
The SLA and JEM say they are fighting for a better deal for the six million inhabitants of Darfur, not secession, like their counterparts in the Christian-dominated Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in southern Sudan.
The mainly black but Muslim Darfur rebels accuse President Omar Hassan El-Bashir of having neglected the region. They are pitched against the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed Arab militia group which fights alongside it.

Responding to international accusations that lawless militias have been committing serious human rights violations in the western region of Darfur, Dr Sulaf al-Din Salih, the commissioner-general of Sudan's Humanitarian Aid Commission, told IRIN that the international community was misinformed about the reality in Darfur. The accusations, he added during an interview in the capital, Khartoum, on 2 April, were part of a campaign against the Sudanese government and people. Below are excerpts:

QUESTION: Since December 2003, the humanitarian situation in Darfur has reportedly got considerably worse. What has happened?

ANSWER: I don't consider that the situation has got considerably worse. On the contrary, I think the situation has really improved since then. Everyone knows this was triggered by a rebel attack on civilians, on government properties, on government projects. And it was quite a natural thing that the government authorities, as well as the local communities, started fighting back at the rebellion. 
It peaked when many areas were not accessible. But now almost all areas, except for a limited area in the Jabal Marrah, are accessible. Now we have national and international NGOs placed in the area. We are encouraging local NGOs from Darfur, and they are making their own campaign for collecting donations and establishing their offices there. 

Q: So humanitarian access is better now, but there are many reports that the situation on the ground is much worse.

A: It is not true, it is not true. And I'm quite sure, because we are in every village, we receive reports, and we follow up on the situation very well. There is no famine, there are still some attacks between different groups, bandits moving around, but definitely there are more police forces going to the area, more army to keep the security of the people in the field. So we think that things are improving quite a lot. 

Q: The Janjawid [militias], plus the army, have been accused of ethnic cleansing or a scorched earth policy. Reports say the situation is getting worse and will continue. How do you respond to that? 

A: We think this is a political campaign. Unfortunately, the UN office here in Sudan and worldwide has been part of this political campaign against the government. This is very serious - we are really considering an option of taking the UN out of the area. 
This is very serious because these statements are not true. This is false information, because they [the UN] don't have the ability to access all the areas. 
So now the UN office worldwide is producing data which is quite contrary to what is happening in the field. This has been used by many political groups against the government, against the whole peace process.

Q: It's not just the UN though. Other groups such as Human Rights Watch, groups that are very highly respected worldwide, are also reporting the same thing.

A: They are not in the field. We are having problems, yes. It has mounted into some sort of tribal conflict, but we are exerting the maximum effort from the government side to stop this. At first it was one group, a political rebellion, then it became a tribal conflict. But as I said, we have managed to get the fullest commitment from all the tribal leaders to stop this. 
This is one of the major projects for the government: to bring the social fabric back again.

Q: So the tribal leaders have committed [themselves] to stopping the violence. But do they control the Janjawid? 

A: It is not only the Janjawid. People forget about the other groups called Tora Bora and others as well. 
Definitely the government did not have enough forces to control all the area. So these groups have committed atrocities and have gone beyond the normal security or military operations. But it is the commitment of the government, and this has been raised by the president on all the committees, that everyone has to be under control of the army or the police
I think we have succeeded in controlling all these groups to a very great extent. Up to now, there are still some activities, but far less than there used to be. 

Q: There have been many accusations that the army is involved in the attacks, working alongside the militias. Do you accept that, and what is being done to stop it?

A: If there is any such claim, we want to know it so we can investigate. We know of some cases where things were brought to court. But we do welcome, really welcome, any specific cases so we can investigate.

Q: The last time we spoke in December, you talked about the fact that the government had supported the militias in an effort to fight the rebellion in Darfur, that it had called people forward to fight the rebels.

A: We asked all the people of Darfur to help in protecting themselves against the rebellion. This is standard practice which we do in this country. Whenever there is an attack on a community, we ask the local community to support, to help.

Q: But we have a situation now where the same people are committing atrocities.

A: Now the situation is largely under control by the armed forces, the police and local authorities. Also because of the involvement of local leaders, local chiefs in the peace process, there is a better humanitarian situation compared to the past. 
But I think that the international community should be fair and positive enough to state that it was the rebel groups which started attacking. They're the ones who ignited the whole problem in the area. And then it became a sort of catalytic [sic] thing, of people fighting back or defending themselves, or even going beyond defending themselves...
We have a list of atrocities committed by the rebel groups - killing, raping, looting, destroying development projects. In South Darfur, they have been killing people inside hospitals - patients. So I think the international community should adopt a more balanced vision and approach to the problem.

Q: You mentioned there being more army and police enforcement in Darfur, and yet reports are still continuing of atrocities. What is being done to arrest or stop either the Janjawid or the rebels?

A: We have asked the judicial system there, the police and the army to take things into their hands, and for people to report to the police and to take cases to court so that everyone can raise their case in front of the judicial system.
It will take some time from our own experience, because we don't have many courts. It is the tribal system which is going to have the major role. These tribes have their own mechanisms of settling problems between themselves. They have their own systems of compensation, or recognition, and there are very major claims of looting of thousands of herds and killing of people. 

Q: You keep coming back to the statement that the international community has a false impression of what is happening in Darfur. Why is this?

A: It is a campaign, a political campaign led by groups against the people of Sudan, the government of Sudan. This is an imbalance, it is not fair. Our position is the following: yes, we have a problem, we had a very serious problem in the past. We managed to control it in a reasonable way. Things are improving in terms of delivery of aid, of controlling atrocities. 
But there are still some problems. We recognise this, we want the international community to help us to bypass and bring safety and security and reach some sort of an agreed solution to the problem. 
This problem did not start last year. They [people of Darfur] have had their own political concerns for more than 40 years. So now one of the decisions of the ministerial committee is to look in depth into the reasons for the grievances. I think this is a real challenge for us now, how we identify the reasons: marginalisation or an unbalanced approach to the area or whatever; but really we have to look at the root causes of the problem and try to tackle them.

Q: In the event of a ceasefire, what will be done to allow the hundreds of thousands of displaced people to go back to their homes? 

A: People are already going back home. People have the ability to assess the situation, whether they can go back or not. This has been done through local mechanisms or tribal systems. They make an agreement between themselves that they are going to protect this process of return, that no one is going to attack them. So whether there is a ceasefire or not, this process has already started. 

Q: Will the government be giving assurances to people that they can move back?

A: We are already giving these assurances to people. But as I have said, the people are making their own decisions. They have their own system of sensing whether it is safe or not to go back. We are trying to encourage it, but definitely it is their own decision. 
The state government, the local authorities, as well as the local chiefs, are helping them to make that decision. But it is quite a voluntary process.

Sudan has no need of outside military help to end the war in the remote western region of Darfur, foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said today. Speaking before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva on the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda earlier today, UN chief Kofi Annan had said that the international community “must be ready to act quickly”, and using military means if necessary, to allow humanitarian aid to reach Darfur. “The only thing we want from the international community is for it to help us to manage the humanitarian crisis so that together we can help the people,” said Ismail. The United States lost no time in commenting on Annan’s declarations either; Washington stressed that for now it is necessary to focus on a diplomatic solution rather than on military intervention from outside. Nonetheless, in a statement released today US President George Bush added his voice to the chorus of protest over the situation in Darfur, urging the Sudanese government to end the “atrocities” being carried out there. Meanwhile, today has seen a major step forward in the peace talks underway in Chad between the government and two armed rebel groups, JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) and SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement), the protagonists of the war in Darfur. After days of consultations involving separate meetings with mediators, today the sides met face to face for the first time. In February 2003 JEM and SLA-M rose up in arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, which they accuse of neglecting Darfur because it is inhabited mostly by blacks, and of financing militia of Arab predators (known as Janjaweed), who have wreaked havoc in this part of the country for years. The UN estimates that several thousand people have died since the onset of violence, which has created a million internally displaced people and 130,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad.

A United Nations panel of experts is at work since yesterday in an urgent mission to investigate for ten days into the critical situation in Darfur, the western region of Sudan for the past year theatre to a conflict between local rebels and government troops. The announcement was made by Ginevra Annick Stevenson, spokeswoman of the UN High Commission for Human Rights. The mission is headed by Bacre Waly Ndiaye, director of the New York offices of the UN High Commission, and will include four functionaries that are currently in Chad, attending permits to enter Sudan. The spokeswoman explained that first the experts will gather testimonies among the over 100-thousand refugees that have escaped to Chadian territory and then they will go to Darfur to shed light on what the UN defined as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Last Friday High Commissioner Bertrand Ramcharan had expressed profound concern over the degeneration of the humanitarian situation and that of human rights in Darfour, from where reports continue arriving of systematic abuse of civilians”. UN Under-Secretary of humanitarian affairs, Norwegian Jan Egeland, openly denounced an “ethnic cleansing” against the civil population by the local Arab militants (known as ‘Janjaweed’). According to the humanitarian agencies that have access to this arid region, the clashes between the government troops and rebels – that rose against authorities demanding major protection – have so far resulted in the displacement of over 1-million, for the most part the black population relentlessly targeted by the Arab militants. Egeland invited the international community to put pressure on the Sudan government, accused of supporting the ‘Janjaweed’.

One week after arriving in Chad for peace negotiations, the Sudan government and two armed movements in Darfur province have still not held direct talks on how to end a bitter armed conflict which has  brought misery to more than a million people.
A senior official of the Chadian government, which is trying to act as mediator between the two sides, said on Tuesday that this impasse could  force Chad to abandon its efforts to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table.
"Unfortunately, we haven't had any direct talks. There is an indirect dialogue. We have the feeling that opinions are converging", Ahmad Allammi, the official spokesman at the negotiations, told IRIN by telephone from the Chadian capital N'djamena. 
But Allammi, a political advisor to Chadian President Idriss Deby, warned: "If in the next fewl hours we don't progress, we could be forced to suspend the negotiations."
So far Chadian diplomats have been shuttling between different floors of a N'djamena hotel, trying to convince delegations from the Sudanese government, and  the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and  Movement for Justice and Equality (MJE) rebel movements, to sit at the same table. 
"They are under the same roof, but not at the same table", Allammi said.
If Chad suspends its mediation, it would prolong what the United Nations has called the "worst humanitarian crisis" in the world. 
Allammi said the Chadian mediators had presented both  sides with a draft ceasefire-agreement which had been agreed to in principle.
However, the sticking point in the talks is the suggested presence of  Western diplomats as observers.
Without giving details, Allami said the Sudanese government delegation was refusing to allow the presence of " a western delegation."
The rebels favoured having as many international observers as possible, he added. 
The rebel groups say they are fighting for greater political and economic rights for Darfur, Sudan's western region, which borders Chad.
They accuse the government of neglecting the remote and arid  region which is now plagued by conflict between pro-government Arabs and discontented blacks.
The conflict, which began early last year, has caused more 110,000 Sudanese to seek refuge in neighbouring Chad and has internally displaced more than 750,000 villagers with Darfur.
It has led to countless rapes and killings of civilians as villages are burned and looted.
Human Rights Watch has accused the government and its Arab militia allies of using a scorched-earth policy as a fighting tactic.

The United States has communicated the arrival in the next hours of a top US representatives in Naivasha, Kenya, for the final phase of the peace talks underway between the government of Khartoum and rebels of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), the two protagonists of the two-decade war combated in South Sudan. The news was referred by State Department sources, underlining that “the sides are so close to a final accord that it could be reached already this week”, in the words of the spokeswoman Julie Reside. Yesterday also Sudan’s President Omar el-Beshir, intervening before parliament, stated that the accord is “very close”, without however providing ulterior details. In reality, for months now the signing of the peace accord for South Sudan has been defined as “imminent”. The first deadline, agreed by both protagonists before the most interested mediator, the US government, was set for the end of 2003. The meetings between Sudan Vice President Ali Osman Taha and John Garang (SPLA leader) proceed on the remaining dispute: the destiny of three central regions of the nation (Abyei, Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile), on which both claim influence. The main divergences regard the future of the province of Abyei, a rich oil zone, which based on geographical criteria falls under influence of the Muslim north, but that has always been politically linked to the separatists of the South. According to the Italian ANSA news agency, last March the US proposed a joint control of the sides over Abyei: dividing the oil proceeds between Khartoum and SPLA, with a respective 50 and 42%, while the rest would go to the local tribes. The fighting between the government and rebels devastated South Sudan for two decades, claiming over 2-million lives. But while Khartoum is on the verge of filing one war, another is still in full swing in the remote western region of Darfur (along the border with Chad), causing increasing concerns of the international community

The Ethiopian government said on Monday that the situation in the volatile southwestern region of Gambela, where scores of people have been killed in ethnic clashes, mainly between the Anyuak and Nuer, has improved. 
In a statement sent to IRIN by the Ministry of Federal Affairs, Ethiopia said that "the situation on the ground has come down to normality". It said security in the region had been beefed up, the perpetrators of the violence arrested, destroyed homes rebuilt and the provision of relief was ongoing. 
"On 13 December 2003, a tragic riot took place in Gambela town, where innocent Anyuak civilians were cold-bloodedly killed and their houses burnt down by a mob of hooligans and their supporters, all of whom were non-indigenous. This was a culmination of previous problems that were simmering," the statement said. 
The number of Anyuaks killed and wounded, the statement added, was surveyed by a task force organised by the regional government and found to total 56, but the figure could be as high as 60. The number of members of the same ethnic group wounded was found to be 74, while tukuls (houses) burnt down totalled 410 and belonged to 324 households. 
According to the statement, a large population of students and pupils from the Anyuak nationality have not only discontinued schooling but have fled. "This is in contrast with the Nuers and other non-indigenous residents who had also run away, but the majority of whom are back and attending schools. The reason for fleeing from the town can only be fear from the violence (killing and burning)," it said. 
After a period of relative calm lasting almost three weeks, more extensive killings of people reportedly occurred on 30 January in the Dima district of Gambela, bordering on Sudan, the statement said. 
"The regional government reported 196 people killed, of whom 172 were traditional miners mainly from the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples [Regional] State... The Ministry of Defence figures were 81 people killed, and not 196," it said. "There was no difference on who the perpetrators were: these were 200 armed Anyuaks ostensibly posing as leaders of the Anyuak people." 
Another four people were killed on 18 February, in an ambush. "On 21 February, the same armed men burnt settlement number 13 down to ashes early in the morning... As a result, 23 people were killed and 14 wounded. These innocent and peaceful settlers [were] from highland Ethiopia," it said. 
According to the statement, about 37 of more than 60 suspects involved in the killings and burning of houses were verified, and a federal prosecutor has started examining the records, finalising them for federal courts. "In Dima, about 40 suspected perpetrators were arrested and a team of federal and regional police investigators have been sent [there]." 
"Once the normal functions of state and public services are in place, a fresh and new turnaround towards rapid development is mandatory... The lasting solution to the incessant conflict in Gambela is rapid and speedy development with grass-roots (indigenous people's) support. Federal intervention is aimed at creating a conducive and enabling environment for improved governance and palpable development initiatives," the government said. 
Gambela is located in southwestern Ethiopia bordering on Sudan. There have been persistent conflicts between the Nuer (population 90,517) and the Anyuak (62,586). There are also other minority groups in the region. "The Nuers felt marginalised and the Anyuak elite were not willing to give away their domination. This led to a chain of ethnic conflicts in the year 2001/02," the statement said.

The conflict underway for over a year between government forces and rebels in the remote western region of Sudan is increasingly assuming a political dimension and becoming a cause for major international concern, despite efforts by Khartoum to the contrary. The embarrassment of the central government can be inferred from the decreasing interest of the international media for the imminent signing of the peace accord in southern Sudan, which will put an end to the 20-year conflict in another part of the country: south Sudan. The military and humanitarian crisis in Darfur features ever more strongly in diplomatic agendas and on the pages of newspapers, while the negotiations in Naivasha (Kenya) between the central authorities and SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) appear to have taken second place, along with government hopes for a new international standing for the country and the related rehabilitation of a government for a long time considered close to Osama bin Laden and the international terrorist network. There has been a proliferation of denouncements from non governmental organisations (NGOs) in recent weeks concerning acts of wickedness and violence against civilians in Darfur by militia of Arab predators known as Janjaweed, which the Sudanese government is accused of backing. In February 2003 two rebel movements, JEM (Justice and equality Movement) and SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement), formally rose up in arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, which it accuses of neglecting Darfur, which is inhabited predominantly by blacks. According to United Nations, a year of fighting has left thousands of people dead, generated a million internally displaced people and forced 130,000 people to seek refuge across the border in neighbouring Chad. Yesterday, numerous and detailed reports – sometimes signed by local UN representatives – pushed the UN into announcing the opening of an investigation into the situation in Darfur. “Given the urgency of the situation, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights hopes to send a mission over the next few days,” said José Diaz, spokesman for the UN humanitarian office. In the meantime, in Ndjamena (Chad), the protagonists of the war in Darfur are initiating peace talks that are bizarre to say the least. For at least 48 hours, representatives of both the government and the two rebel movements have been holding separate talks with mediators from Chad and the African Union, who announced yesterday that they had managed to bring the three delegations together under the same roof, although on separate floors: Khartoum’s rejection of the presence of international observers (United States and European Union) at the negotiating table – which the rebels instead hold dear – makes direct talks impossible. Perhaps to overcome the deadlock, allowing the government and rebels to meet face to face, yesterday evening the UN Security Council invited the sides to agree a “humanitarian ceasefire” allowing NGOs and the UN to remedy what the international body has itself defined one of the “worst humanitarian crises in the world”. (translation of an article by Massimo Zaurrini).

Humanitarian agencies working in the northern Upper Nile region relocated their staff this week amid increasing insecurity and tension, according to a UN source. 
"We temporarily relocated OLS [Operation Lifeline Sudan] staff from two locations in [the] Shilluk [area] again this week, because of security concerns," Ben Parker, the spokesman for the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, told IRIN on Friday. "There has been an increase in insecurity in the area since the beginning of the year," he added. 
Since the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-United (SPLM/A-U), led by Lam Akol, rejoined the mainstream SPLM/A last October, tensions and violence in the region have been flaring up. 
A regional analyst told IRIN that some of Akol's Shilluk forces had rejected the merger and were involved in the recent violence, but that it was unclear how many. 
The clashes in the Shilluk kingdom in northern Upper Nile have resulted in the displacement of at least 30,000 civilians, who are now gathered in various temporary sites both in government areas in and around Malakal, and SPLM/A-held locations, according to Parker. 
Meanwhile, peace talks between the government and the SPLM/A are continuing in neighbouring Kenya, but have reached deadlock over the status of three disputed regions in central Sudan: the Nuba mountains, southern Blue Nile and, in particular, oil-rich Abyei. 
A cessation of hostilities agreement has been in place between the government and the SPLM/A since October 2002.

The Sudanese government delegation to peace talks in Chad and representatives from Darfur's rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, were holding talks with the Chadian mediators on Friday, but not with each other, a Western diplomat said. 
An EU official told IRIN in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, that the negotiations, which started on Wednesday, were still "procedural". Delegates were still talking about the agenda and the role of the facilitators, with diverging views between the participants. 
The rebels wanted international observers to attend all the discussions, while the government was in favour of monitors being present only during discussions on humanitarian issues, he said. 
The two rebel groups, which are calling for greater political and economic rights for Darfur, had made the presence of international monitors a precondition to holding direct talks with the government, he added. 
Another reason for the lack of progress might be the fact that too many international observers had turned up for the talks, the official said, including delegations from the African Union, the UN, the EU and the US. 
The diplomat said the government had reneged on an agreement to allow officials from the US and EU to take part in peace talks on the war-torn Darfur region. He told IRIN that following talks with EU and US officials for over a month, the government and Darfur's two rebels groups had agreed to allow the monitors to take part. 
The formula agreed upon was to hold talks in Chad, under the chairmanship of Chadian President Idriss Deby, and with the EU and US "actively involved in talks about a humanitarian ceasefire". Political talks could take place afterwards, but it had only been agreed that the EU and US would be involved in discussions on a ceasefire, he said. 
Among those anxious that the talks should succeed is UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In a statement distributed at the opening of the talks, Annan said he was "very disturbed by events in Darfur, where the continuing conflict is having a devastating impact on the lives and wellbeing of the people". 
"Civilian casualties and serious human rights violations are routinely reported. This is unacceptable and must stop," Annan said. 
He hailed President Deby, the Sudanese government, the parties to the conflict and the international community over the talks, but added: "The fighting must stop, and to this end I strongly encourage all parties to work intensively towards declaring an effective humanitarian ceasefire. Humanitarian organisations and staff must also receive safe and unimpeded access to all those in need." 
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday that the Sudanese government was complicit in crimes against humanity being committed by government-backed militias in Darfur. 
In a new report, "Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan", HRW said that in a scorched-earth campaign, government forces and Arab militias were killing, raping and looting African civilians that share the same ethnicities as rebel forces in Darfur. 
Neimad Bilal, the press attache at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, rejected the report. "I have seen it, but it is all lies, nothing but lies," she told IRIN. 
But Georgette Gagnon, the deputy director for the Africa division of HRW said in the report: "The Sudanese military and government-backed militias are committing massive human rights violations daily in the western region of Darfur. The government's campaign of terror has already forcibly displaced one million innocent civilians, and the numbers are increasing by the day." 
HRW called on the government of Sudan to immediately disarm and disband the militias, and allow international humanitarian groups access to provide relief to the displaced persons.

In an interview with IRIN, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian  Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said that the Darfur region of Sudan was one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises and that a "scorched-earth" campaign of ethnic cleansing was taking place there. He called for an immediate ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, the restoration of law and order and for prompt and generous donor support.

Question: How would you describe the humanitarian situation in Darfur ?

Answer: This is one of the most forgotten and perhaps most neglected humanitarian crises. We receive reports now on a daily basis from our own people on the ground in Darfur on widespread atrocities and grave violations of human rights against the civilian population.  Stopping these attacks against women, children, the displaced and refugees and ensuring their protection is our number one priority. We have also seen an organised campaign of forced depopulation of entire areas that has resulted in the displacement of hundreds and thousands of people, both within Darfur and to neighbouring Chad.  Most of our relief efforts are targeting these displaced populations. Linked to that again is something which is undermining our ability to provide assistance to these displaced populations. It is the limitations of our ability to access the estimated one million people affected by the conflict. 

Q. Do you believe that civilians are being deliberately targeted in these attacks ? 

A. We have received credible reports that show a clear and consistent pattern: entire villages are looted, burned down and sometimes bombed.  Large numbers of civilians have been killed and scores of women and children have been abducted, raped and tortured.  Scorched-earth tactics are being employed throughout Darfur, including the deliberate destruction of schools, wells, seeds and food supplies, making whole towns and villages uninhabitable.  Not even the camps for the refugees and the internally displaced are immune from attacks. I consider this to be ethnic cleansing. I can't find any other word for it because these attacks primarily target the Fur, Zaghawa, Massaleit and certain other communities of black African origin.

Q. Who is responsible for these attacks ?

A. Based on numerous accounts, including reports from our own staff, the Janjaweed militia are primarily responsible for carrying out the attacks.  In fact, war loot derived from these raids appears to be their main source of compensation. Last month alone we had eyewitness reports from either our own UN staff or NGO partners of 59 violent attacks with a total of 212 civilians killed and 107 injured.  Of these, 166 killings were attributed to the Janjaweed and at times also with government associated troops and 43 killings were attributed to rebel groups, the JEM [Justice and Equality Movement] and the SLA [the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army]. Of course, these detailed reports only represent a fraction of the full extent of the violence as we have limited access to most parts of Darfur. 

Q. You mentioned earlier that humanitarian organisations are having difficulty gaining access to the displaced. Why are they having so many problems ?

A. Permits to travel to the three regional capitals of Darfur - El Geinana, El Fasher and Nyala  - are granted only after about eight to ten days.  Permits to travel outside these urban areas are often delayed for extended periods, only granted to certain locations and sometimes denied.  We have insisted at the highest level with the Sudanese authorities that these issues must be resolved. Lack of security is another key constraint.  Many access roads are too dangerous for relief workers, preventing them from carrying out assessments or reaching people in need.  In the past two weeks, a Médecins Sans Frontières truck was looted between Nyala and Zalingi and a WFP truck was ambushed and looted in Azalya.  Following these incidents, even drivers of commercial trucks have been hesitant to travel a number of roads.  In the next few months the logistical challenges will increase as the rainy season will make the roads inaccessible.

Q. Given these access constraints are aid agencies able to provide any assistance ?

A. We estimate that humanitarian agencies have access to about 350,000 vulnerable people in Darfur - only about one third of the estimated total population in need.  For example, WFP has so far distributed approximately 4,000 tons of food to some 324,000 people.  Its target is to deliver 10,000 tons to 750,000 people, a number that could rise quickly as we gain access to more areas and host communities deplete their food reserves. 
We are also assisting the refugees who have fled across the border to Chad.  As many of them have been subject to attacks by militia crossing from Sudan, UNHCR is mounting a major logistical operation to establish camps and transfer refugees away from the border zone.  Convoys are bringing refugees to four camps in the northern part and one camp in the southern part of the region.   More than 15,000 refugees have been transferred to these camps to date.

Q. How do you know what is happening to the civilian population on the ground in Darfur if you do not have widespread access to them ? 

A. Although we have do not have adequate access to all parts of Darfur we do fortunately have humanitarian personnel, including staff from my own office, in each of the three provincial capitals of Darfur. They travel on some roads to some communities and they report every day on atrocities that they witness. We have also been able to obtain information from our NGO partners and from interviews with the displaced people themselves. This is only a fraction of what we believe is really happening.

Q. In your view what can be done to resolve the situation in Darfur ?

A. The most important and urgent appeal we have to make is for an immediate cease-fire. Initial reports from the cease-fire talks being held in N'Djamena in Chad are not very encouraging. After three days, the talks have not yet reached the substance of a cease-fire agreement as the parties disagree on the agenda and the modalities of the talks. No amount of humanitarian assistance can protect people from being attacked.  As the Secretary-General said on Wednesday, the fighting must stop. Now is the time for the parties to agree to a humanitarian cease-fire that should include an effective monitoring and verification mechanism. 
Secondly, the Government of Sudan should commit to the disarmament and control of the Janjaweed militia and ensure that the targeting of civilians ceases immediately.  Law and order has to be restored through non-military means and all those guilty of atrocities should be brought to justice.
Thirdly, the Government should ensure that all humanitarian personnel have full and unimpeded access to all areas of Darfur.  We have to deploy a strong international presence to meet the most urgent needs, as well as to ensure at least a minimum level of passive protection. 
Fourthly, we need the prompt and generous support of donors to allow us to meet the rapidly growing needs. Most of the $ 23 million appealed for by the UN last September has been raised. Since then, the needs have quadrupled and a minimum of $ 115 million is now required to support the expanded operation. A separate appeal for $ 30 million was launched today in Geneva to meet the needs of refugees and host communities in Chad. 
Finally, I am encouraged to note that the Security Council issued a statement today expressing its concern about the massive humanitarian crisis in Darfur and calling on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and reach a ceasefire. I hope that the Council will remain seized of the matter and will consider taking further action if the situation does not improve. 

The Sudanese government delegation to peace talks in Chad and representatives from Darfur's rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, were holding talks with the Chadian mediators on Friday, but not with each other, a Western diplomat said.
An EU official told IRIN in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, that the negotiations, which started on Wednesday, were still "procedural". Delegates were still talking about the agenda and the role of the facilitators, with diverging views between the participants. 
The rebels wanted international observers to attend all the discussions, while the government was in favour of monitors being present only during discussions on humanitarian issues, he said. 
The two rebel groups, which are calling for greater political and economic rights for Darfur, had made the presence of international monitors a precondition to holding direct talks with the government, he added. 
Another reason for the lack of progress might be the fact that too many international observers had turned up for the talks, the official said, including delegations from the African Union, the UN, the EU and the US.
The diplomat said the government had reneged on an agreement to allow officials from the US and EU to take part in peace talks on the war-torn Darfur region. He told IRIN that following talks with EU and US officials for over a month, the government and Darfur's two rebels groups had agreed to allow the monitors to take part.
The formula agreed upon was to hold talks in Chad, under the chairmanship of Chadian President Idriss Deby, and with the EU and US "actively involved in talks about a humanitarian ceasefire". Political talks could take place afterwards, but it had only been agreed that the EU and US would be involved in discussions on a ceasefire, he said.
Among those anxious that the talks should succeed is UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In a statement distributed at the opening of the talks, Annan said he was "very disturbed by events in Darfur, where the continuing conflict is having a devastating impact on the lives and wellbeing of the people". 
"Civilian casualties and serious human rights violations are routinely reported. This is unacceptable and must stop," Annan said.
He hailed President Deby, the Sudanese government, the parties to the conflict and the international community over the talks, but added: "The fighting must stop, and to this end I strongly encourage all parties to work intensively towards declaring an effective humanitarian ceasefire. Humanitarian organisations and staff must also receive safe and unimpeded access to all those in need."
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday that the Sudanese government was complicit in crimes against humanity being committed by government-backed militias in Darfur. 
In a new report, "Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan", HRW said that in a scorched-earth campaign, government forces and Arab militias were killing, raping and looting African civilians that share the same ethnicities as rebel forces in Darfur.
Neimad Bilal, the press attache at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, rejected the report. "I have seen it, but it is all lies, nothing but lies," she told IRIN.
But Georgette Gagnon, the deputy director for the Africa division of HRW said in the report: "The Sudanese military and government-backed militias are committing massive human rights violations daily in the western region of Darfur. The government's campaign of terror has already forcibly displaced one million innocent civilians, and the numbers are increasing by the day."
HRW called on the government of Sudan to immediately disarm and disband the militias, and allow international humanitarian groups access to provide relief to the displaced persons.
"Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan" is available at: 
<http://hrw.org/reports/2004/sudan0404/>

Humanitarian agencies working in the northern Upper Nile region relocated their staff this week amid increasing insecurity and tension, according to a UN source.
"We temporarily relocated OLS [Operation Lifeline Sudan] staff from two locations in [the] Shilluk [area] again this week, because of security concerns," Ben Parker, the spokesman for the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, told IRIN on Friday. "There has been an increase in insecurity in the area since the beginning of the year," he added.
Since the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-United (SPLM/A-U), led by Lam Akol, rejoined the mainstream SPLM/A last October, tensions and violence in the region have been flaring up.
A regional analyst told IRIN that some of Akol's Shilluk forces had rejected the merger and were involved in the recent violence, but that it was unclear how many. 
The clashes in the Shilluk kingdom in northern Upper Nile have resulted in the displacement of at least 30,000 civilians, who are now gathered in various temporary sites both in government areas in and around Malakal, and SPLM/A-held locations, according to Parker.
Meanwhile, peace talks between the government and the SPLM/A are continuing in neighbouring Kenya, but have reached deadlock over the status of three disputed regions in central Sudan: the Nuba mountains, southern Blue Nile and, in particular, oil-rich Abyei.
A cessation of hostilities agreement has been in place between the government and the SPLM/A since October 2002.

//This is the sixth of a series of reports on prospects for peace in the Sudan. The reports are being published over two months//

With a landmass of over 2 million sq km, Sudan is the largest country in Africa. It has borders with nine countries, all of which will be affected to a greater or lesser degree by the conclusion of a peace deal in their giant neighbour.  A comprehensive peace agreement between the Sudanese government and rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) also has the potential to change the dynamics of the region.
In the 1990s, the Sudanese National Islamic Front (NIF) of President Omar Bashir (who came to power in a military coup in 1989) launched an aggressive Islamist-based foreign policy and tried to export radical Islam to the region. Relations with neighbouring countries, particularly Ethiopia and Eritrea, quickly deteriorated. But the new century has seen a realignment of alliances and shifting allegiances due to factors such as the Ethiopia-Eritrea border war, the ongoing rebellion in northern Uganda and the global war against terror. And undoubtedly one of the greatest effects of a peace deal would be the return of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees to their country from the neighbouring states.

Ethiopia

The Ethiopian government believes the country could reap enormous rewards from lasting peace in Sudan. Bilateral ties have been steadily improving over the last few years, particularly in the aftermath of the Eritrea-Ethiopia war of 1998-2000.
"Peace in Sudan is a harbinger of regional peace," says Information Minister Bereket Simon, stressing that the whole image of the war-ravaged Horn would change in the eyes of the international community. 
"Achieving unity in Sudan within the framework of peace and democracy will offer a significant advantage for both Ethiopia and our region," he told IRIN. 
The government believes that a Sudanese peace deal will also bring an end to religious extremism, fostering greater trade, stability and economic development. Hopes also exist that a lasting solution will bring an end to frequent clashes between rival ethnic groups struggling for ascendancy along the 1,600-km Ethiopia-Sudan border.
Bereket also stated that the "field of operation will be narrowed down" for guerrilla groups intent on destabilising border regions with stable governments.
For Ethiopia cross-border cooperation has been formalised, with the emphasis on boosting the current limited trade levels through business development and oil exports. New negotiations are also underway on fully utilising access and use of the Nile River, which flows from Ethiopia into Sudan. An all-weather road is now linking the north of Ethiopia with Sudan, and Ethiopia benefits from access to Port Sudan and the Red Sea. Telephone networks have been integrated between the two countries, and Ethiopia is delivering excess electricity to Sudan.
The United Nations is also hoping for a "spillover" effect in Ethiopia and Eritrea, two countries emerging from a bloody border war and whose relations are still in deep freeze. "This example of statesmanship in settling a seemingly ingrained and intractable conflict could motivate the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea," said one senior UN peacekeeper.
And while historically, add analysts, Ethiopia's relations with SPLA rebels have been cool in the last decade, they too are warming as peace approaches. SPLA Leader John Garang has visited Addis Ababa twice in recent months meeting Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to brief him on the ongoing peace initiatives.

Eritrea :

Eritrea's relations with Sudan meanwhile have been steadily declining with both sides accusing the other of supporting their rebel groups. Eritrea is historically mistrustful of Khartoum which sought to export radical Islam into the Horn in the mid-1990s. The Sudanese opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has its headquarters in Asmara, the Eritrean capital, although it stresses that it gets no military support from the Eritrean authorities.
Earlier this year, the Eritrean government accused the Sudanese authorities of arresting its nationals and closing community centres frequented by Eritreans in Khartoum. It also believes a new regional alliance, grouping Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen, is aimed at isolating Eritrea in the region.
The border between Sudan and Eritrea remains closed, although they each have diplomatic representation in each other's capitals. Khartoum has repeatedly accused Asmara of backing Sudanese rebels in a bid to topple the regime, but the Eritrean government denies the charges.
"We don't have an agenda of regime change in Sudan," says Yemane Gebremeskel, Director of the Eritrean President's Office. "If the Sudanese want to change their government, then it's up to them." He admits that bilateral ties are currently poor, but stresses that "there are no insurmountable problems".
Regional analysts say radical Islamist groups seeking to destabilise Eritrea could lose their base if a peace deal is concluded in Sudan. Recently there has been a spate of attacks in western Eritrea, believed to have been carried out by the Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement (EIJM) - a Sudan-based Eritrean rebel group. 
The EIJM has previously claimed carrying out attacks on the Eritrean military, but denies targeting civilians.

Uganda:

Uganda's relationship with its northern neighbour over the past 20 years has been strained, largely due to each country supporting the other's rebels. At the end of the 1990's, however, a significant warming of relations officially put an end to this although both sides have periodically accused each other of violating a peace pact, signed in Nairobi in 1999. In June 2002, the two countries signed an agreement known as Operation Iron Fist which allowed Ugandan forces to enter Sudan to flush out LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) bases there.
For Uganda, the 'Sudan question' is paramount, regional analysts say. Should peace come to Sudan, there could be an end in sight to northern Uganda's civil war, which has been raging for nearly 18 years and has caused untold mayhem, destruction and massive loss of life. The Ugandan rebel LRA, led by Joseph Kony, bases its operations out of Sudan.
"A comprehensive peace deal which sticks, between Khartoum and the SPLA, will remove the imperative to support the LRA," one analyst said. "Rogue elements in the Sudanese army will no longer feel the need to support Kony because the SPLA will no longer be a threat."
"Once a peace deal is in place, our full attention will turn to the LRA," the SPLA's spokesman in Kampala, George Riek Machar, commented earlier this year.

Kenya:

Kenya, which has borne the burden of thousands of Sudanese refugees on its territory, stands to gain greatly from peace in its northwestern neighbour. Other peace dividends, according to regional analysts, include a reduced influx of illegal firearms from regional war zones and improved economic prospects due to cheaper oil imports.
Local analyst Charles Omondi says the rise in violence in Kenya can be attributed to the ease with which guns are being acquired through porous borders. He also noted that Kenya, which currently imports its crude oil from the Middle East, stands to gain from cheaper Sudanese oil.
"I envisage a situation where one day a pipeline is built to supply Kenya directly with Sudan's crude oil," he told IRIN.
Former defence minister Marsden Madoka, who is currently shadow foreign minister, noted that Kenya has built an image as a regional peacemaker, and a Sudanese peace deal would enhance this image. Kenyan mediation of the IGAD-sponsored peace talks between the government and SPLA rebels has been widely praised.
"What Kenya has been out to do is to play a very neutral role," Madoka told IRIN. "But most important now is the question of peace and stability."
"Instability in any of our neighbouring countries is a great threat to our own instability," he pointed out. "We have a lot of firearms in the country, which has contributed to much instability in Kenya."
Gitau Warigi, a political commentator with the Kenyan 'Daily Nation', also underlined that peace in Sudan would release development funds for other needy countries.
"Poverty has been spreading in the east African region, but Sudan has diverted attention from other issues that the international community should look at," he said.

Central African Republic:

For the CAR, the biggest benefits from a peace deal in Sudan would be trade and the return of over 37,000 Sudanese refugees. The two countries share a border of over 1,000 km with the same ethnic groups on either side. But the civil war in Sudan prompted tens of thousands of refugees to flee into the CAR, ushering in a climate of permanent insecurity.
According to CAR officials, during the dry season SPLA rebels would infiltrate towns and villages in eastern CAR in order to obtain food supplies and other commodities. "They would enter the CAR up to 100-200km from the border," Come Zoumara, the presidential adviser in defence matters told IRIN. 
For the first time in two years, CAR soldiers were able to reach Bangouti 1,500 km east of the capital Bangui, on the border with Sudan, which had been under SPLA control, Gen Antoine Gambi, the army chief of staff revealed earlier this month during a debate on state-owned Television Centrafricaine. 
Hamis Hagar Zat, an adviser at the Sudanese embassy in Bangui, said a peace accord would constitute an enormous boost for trade between the two countries. The decades-long war subjected the southeastern tip of CAR to abject poverty and underdevelopment, due to the long distance separating it from Bangui.
"With peace and stability restored in southern Sudan, people on both sides of the border would engage in trade and commercial exchanges and develop their region," Hagar Zat said. He added that in time, the two governments - which signed a Trade Accord in 1967 - would consider building or repairing roads linking the two countries.
But one of the biggest effects would be the return of the refugees. In February, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reopened its office in Mboki to educate and organise the voluntary repatriation of refugees.
"The decision to reopen the UNHCR office was motivated by the progress made in negotiations between the rebels and the [Sudanese] government," Jean-Richard Fabomy, a UNHCR field officer, told IRIN. He said the repatriation programme would most likely start in July.

Democratic Republic of Congo :

In the DRC, tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees are also anxiously awaiting the conclusion of a peace deal so that they too can go home. Around 69,000 refugees have been registered by UNHCR, most of them in the northeastern Province Orientale close to the border with Sudan. UNHCR spokesman Fatoumata Kaba said that in theory, the repatriation of refugees should start towards the end of this year. 
"Most of the refugees say they want to go home, but they are waiting for cast iron guarantees regarding the ceasefire, education and infrastructures," he told IRIN. He stressed that the number of registered refugees was "very far from the reality", as thousands more were living outside the camps. Many of them have been in DRC for over 20 years. 
But according to DRC officials, there have not been many problems between the refugees and the local people. "These people are the same on both sides of the border," explained External Trade Minister Roger Lumbala. He was the leader of the former rebel group, Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie/national (RCD/N) which had close ties with SPLA rebels operating from Congolese territory. 
The DRC government meanwhile is launching a diplomatic offensive to boost relations with Sudan. Foreign Minister Antoine Ghonda was due to visit Khartoum  for discussions on issues such as the refugee repatriation. 
According to the US State Department, the DRC's relations with its neighbours, including Sudan, have often been driven by security concerns, leading to intricate and interlocking alliances. The recent crisis in eastern DRC was exacerbated by the use of the Congo as a base by various insurgency groups attacking neighbouring countries, and by the exploitation of Congo's resources by its neighbours. 

Chad:

Ever since fighting broke out in the three Darfur states of western Sudan over a year ago, Chad has been drawn into the Sudan conflict on a different axis. It is currently hosting an estimated 110,000 Sudanese refugees who fled combat between Darfur rebels and Sudanese militias. 
Despite cosy relations between N'djamena and Khartoum, concerns have been raised about regional stability in the area where cross-border ethnic ties are stronger than nationality.  Much of the top brass of the Chadian army belongs to the same Zaghawah ethnic group as many of the refugees. President Idriss Deby of Chad is also a Zaghawah. 
Deby is therefore walking a tightrope, say observers. "He can't afford a falling-out with Sudan," a regional analyst told IRIN. "If he supports his clansmen openly, Sudan will come down on him like a ton of bricks. If he does it covertly, he risks taking the war home with him." 
Whether a peace deal between the Sudanese government and SPLM/A will help bring the deteriorating situation under control remains to be seen, say regional analysts. 
SPLM/A spokesman Yasir Arman maintains that a "democratic solution" to the Darfur conflict will be one of the SPLM/A's first priorities once it enters a transitional government. 
"Any peace agreement is going to inject a new momentum and new ways of looking at things in Sudan. It will allow transformations and political participation," he told IRIN. "If we have an agreement, the present policy of the government is going to change... There will be new thinking for all the parties, including ourselves." 
An EU official noted that a constitutional review is foreseen during the six-year  transition period after a peace deal is signed. "This would be a good opportunity to address the political aspects of the Darfur crisis, but within a broader framework of addressing the issue of marginalisation of various areas," he said.

Egypt:

Egypt and Sudan resumed diplomatic relations in March 2000, which were broken off in 1995 after Cairo accused Khartoum of attempting to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. 
Egypt does not want to see a split Sudan as this would increase the competition for the resources of the Nile river. "Moreover as well as strongly supporting a united Sudan, Egypt has long assumed some extra-territorial rights in Sudan based in historical-cultural linkages, the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium and its assumed natural and historical rights to the waters of the Nile," says Sudan analyst John Young. 
"From such a perspective, Cairo has always favoured an amenable and conciliatory regime in Khartoum," he added. "And no doubt as its premier ally in the region, the US has been influenced by the changing perspectives of Cairo on Khartoum."
"Thus in the present context, Cairo can reasonably conclude that things are moving its way on Sudan...For its part the NIF welcomes Egypt's involvement in the peace process to ensure that self-determination is removed or sufficiently undermined in the peace negotiations," says Young. 
In March, Egypt's ambassador to the UN Ahmed Abul-Gheit stressed his country's interest in maintaining Sudan's territorial integrity and in "bringing about justice, peace and equality to all the people of Sudan". He added that Egypt was keen to get solid international peace guarantees for Sudan.

Libya:

Throughout the 1980s, Sudan's relations with Libya alternated between extreme hostility and cordiality. Observers note that Sudanese leader General Jafar Numayri and Libyan leader Mu'ammar al- Qadhafi were especially antagonistic towards each other. Numayri permitted the opposition Libyan National Salvation Front to broadcast anti-Qadhafi propaganda from radio transmitters located in Sudan. The Libyan government responded by training anti-Numayri opposition forces in Libya and providing financial and material support to the SPLM. 
According to regional analysts, repairing relations with Libya has been a goal of the various governments since 1985. The Sadiq al-Mahdi government allowed Libya to station some of its military forces in Darfur, from where they assisted Chadian rebels in carrying out raids against government forces in Chad. The expanding relations between Sudan and Libya were not viewed favourably in Cairo, and in 1988 - apparently in response to pressure from Egypt and the US - the Sudanese government requested a withdrawal of the Libyan forces.
Observers say relations between Libya and Sudan now can be described as "stagnant" However, Sudanese officials and opposition leaders visit Tripoli occasionally. But Libyan investment in Sudan has dropped to almost nothing. This is largely attributed to lack of Libyan funds after years of sanctions and Qadhafi's displeasure after sponsorship of the peace talks was "hijacked" by the US.

The Sudanese government has confirmed that 10 military officers and a senior opposition leader, Hasan Abdullah al-Turabi, have been detained. The officers, it said in an official statement, had been planning a coup since 2002.
The statement, sent to IRIN by the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, said the Council of ministers had met in an emergency session on Wednesday, chaired by President Umar Hasan al-Bashir, and was briefed by Defence Minister Maj-Gen Bakri Hasan Salih.
It quoted a government spokesman as saying that the alleged plot had targeted the Al-Jayli Refinery and Garry Electricity Station. The arrested officers were headed by a colonel, it said. Investigations were continuing.
Turabi, it added, was detained for "inciting violence and ethnic and regional conflicts in various states of the country". 
International news agencies said he was reportedly arrested by security officials at about 01:30 local time on Tuesday. Earlier, Turabi, the leader of the Popular National Congress party, had told reporters that he feared he might be arrested on allegations of involvement in the purported coup attempt.
Turabi fell out with the president and was detained in 2001. His son, Isam, reportedly visited him on Wednesday morning in a prison in the capital, Khartoum.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese government on Tuesday boycotted the opening session of peace talks in Chad with western rebels in protest at the presence of international observers, international news agencies reported.
The talks in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, were intended to end continuing clashes between government troops and rebels in the western Darfur, where the rebels say they are fighting for greater recognition of the people living there. The talks, a joint initiative by the US and EU, started despite the boycott. 
On Wednesday, Sudanese television reported that the government had refused to attend meetings "that had not been previously agreed upon". It said the government delegation would first meet the Chadian mediator before joining the talks. Chadian President Idriss Deby is the mediator.

The government of Khartoum and rebels of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) decided to proceed in the peace talks underway in Naivasha, Kenya, as referred today by the mediators. The two protagonists of the war that has devastated South Sudan for over two decades, claiming over 2-million lives, preferred to ignore the interruption set for March 31 and continue the debate on the main unresolved issue: the destiny of three central regions of the nation (Abyei, Mount Nuba and south Blue Nile) on which both sides claim influence. “The meetings will continue: the sides referred their will to continue negotiating”, underlined the head mediator, Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, without however providing ulterior details. Indiscretions indicate that the head to head between Sudan’s Vice-President Ali Osman Taha and John Garang (SPLA leader) will continue for a week. The main differences regard the future of the province of Abyei, an oil rich region under the influence of the Muslim north, but that has always been politically linked to the separatists of the south. Once this last issue is resolved, save for last minute novelties, the SPLA and Khartoum should finally proceed to the signing of a long-attended definitive peace accord that should officially end the longest African conflict. 

The war in Darfur, the western region of Sudan where rebels and government forces have been combating for over a year, “is a disastrous conflict and must really be considered among the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis as claimed by the UN”. This was the statement made to MISNA by Monsignor Cesare Mazzolari, a Comboni, Bishop of Rumbek (South Sudan), who just returned from a visit of a few days in south Darfur. “I heard the testimonies of the Denka (black population) that are abandoning the zones where they had settled in the past years and where now their homes and fields have been burned”, explains over the phone the missionary-Bishop. The protagonists of the Darfur conflict include various rebel movements of the black population against the Islamic government of Khartoum, accused of failing to defend the civilians from incursions of Arab militants. According to Monsignor Mazzolari also the Arab population of Darfur – inhabited by a total of around 5-million people – were subject to attacks of the numerous armed groups active in the region: “I saw with my own eyes 900 Arabs fleeing with their families, attending other displaced Arabs on the way with their cattle and few belongings they managed to transport”. The Bishop denounced “the indiscriminate attack against civilians, whose situation is degenerating by the day”. A group of UN experts two days ago denounced “the serious human rights violations” underway in Darfur, where the toll has reached a million displaced (over 100-thousand refugees in Chad) and thousands of victims. “They call it ethnic cleansing – stated the interviewee to MISNA – and some made paragons with the Rwandan genocide of ten years ago, though the proportions are inferior”. Monsignor Mazzolari defines another preoccupying phenomenon, taking place in attendance of a peace accord between the Islamic government of Sudan and separatists of the South, announced many time but still no signed: “There has been a sudden reawakening of internal conflicts latent for ten to twenty years, as if there were the sensation that they need to be regulated before peace between the government and SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army)”. The Bishop of Rumbek cites the clashes that took place in mid March in the zone of Aluakluak, in the south of his diocese: “Between 20 and 50 people were killed and around 20,000 were displaced, losing their homes and crops”; violence was also reported north of Rumbek. But there is a detail that worries the Comboni missionary: “Groups of Denka combating each other. Sudan is shaken by a widespread restlessness of unknown origin. Darfur is just the most atrocious case”. In conclusion an appeal to the international community: “The Red Cross has already intervened: we will be able to rebuild the society if we are not abandoned to our own demise”.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he is "very disturbed" by continuing fighting in Sudan's western Darfur region, describing civilian casualties and human rights violations there as "unacceptable", according to a statement issued by his spokesperson on Wednesday.
The statement, which was distributed to the participants of the ceasefire talks on Darfur currently being held in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, quotes Annan as saying that the fighting in Darfur "is having a devastating impact on the lives and wellbeing of the people" and "must stop".
UN agencies recently reported that as a result of the humanitarian crisis affecting Darfur, more than 750,000 Sudanese had been internally displaced and another 110,000 had fled across the border to neighbouring Chad.
In the statement, Annan welcomed the efforts of Chadian President Idriss Deby, the government of Sudan, parties to the conflict and the international community to end the conflict. He called for an end to the fighting and urged all parties "to work intensively towards declaring an effective humanitarian ceasefire". He also stressed that humanitarian organisations "must receive safe and unimpeded access to all those in need".
The fighting in Darfur has raged for over a year, pitting Sudanese government forces and allied militias against rebel groups there.

The African Development Fund (ADF) has awarded Ethiopia and Sudan a grant of US $2.59 million towards launching a study on the irrigation and drainage of the eastern Nile, according to a statement the ADF issued on Wednesday
The aim of the study is "to enhance food security, reduce rural poverty and preserve the environment through sustainable natural resource management", and "enhance efforts towards an integrated approach to irrigation and drainage development in the eastern Nile sub-basin", it said. 
The study would cover an area of about 15,000 ha, "divided equally between Ethiopia and Sudan". It will have two components: an engineering sub-study "dealing with concrete investment projects in the two countries and joint action for equitable and sustainable use of the shared water resources", and "a Cooperative Regional Assessment sub-study, which will prepare guidelines for the identification and selection of investment projects of regional interest". 
According to the ADF, the study would adopt a comprehensive approach to rural development, using a "participatory approach that will involve farmers and institutions".
During the first half of March, delegates from the 10 states sharing the River Nile waters were engaged in intense negotiations in Entebbe, Uganda, on the shores of Lake Victoria, which feeds the Nile, in an effort to flesh out a treaty regulating the use of the waters. 
The talks were organised by the Nile Basin Initiative, an intergovernmental organisation that seeks to achieve sustainable socioeconomic development and management of Nile Basin water resources. They were being held amid growing disagreement between countries in the south of the Nile basin, primarily Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, which want to use the Nile waters for large-scale projects that might affect water levels farther down the river, and countries to the north, mainly Egypt, which might be affected by such projects. 
[Also see: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39937]

Sudan's opposition leader, Hasan Abdullah al-Turabi, was arrested on Wednesday, three days after the government launched a crackdown on military officers whom it accused of plotting a coup, international news agencies reported.
According to the agencies, security officials arrested Turabi at about 01:30 local time. Turabi, the leader of the Popular National Congress party, had earlier told reporters that he feared he might be arrested on allegations of involvement in the purported coup attempt.
Contacted for comment, the press attache at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Neimad Bilal, told IRIN she had no information about the reported arrests. 
A former ally of President Umar Hasan al-Bashir, who came to power in a 1989 military coup, Turabi fell out with the president and was detained in 2001. International news reports said Turabi's son, Isam, had visited him on Wednesday in a prison in the capital, Khartoum.
Meanwhile, eight UN human rights experts were quoted in a UN press release as saying on 26 March that they were "gravely concerned" by the scale of reported human rights abuses and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the western region of Darfur.
The statement said the Fur, Masalit, Dajo, Tunjur, Tama and Zaghawah ethnic groups had been the principal targets of "systematic human rights violations" perpetrated mainly by "government-aligned militias such as the Janjawid, Murahilin and the Popular Defence Forces". It was being alleged, they said, that the government was "encouraging the actions of these militia" in order to effect the forcible displacement of these non-Arab communities of which, since February 2003, 750,000 had been internally displaced, while over 100,000 had fled to neighbouring Chad.
The experts added that the situation had seriously deteriorated recently, with "scores of civilians being killed", and quoted information reporting that in attacks by militias on refugees and displaced people there had been "rape of women and girls, abduction of children, the burning of dozens of villages, looting and the destruction of livestock".
They called on all parties to the conflict to "respect the civilian populations", and affirmed "the absolute necessity of identifying the perpetrators and ensuring that they are held accountable in conformity with international standards".

Talks are due to open in the early afternoon in Ndjamena (Chad) between all the protagonists of the internal conflict in Darfur, the western Sudanese region torn by violence since last year. The meeting was due to start yesterday, but at the last moment the representatives of the Islamic government of Khartoum decided to desert the Chadian capital, already reached by the delegates of the two rebel groups that rose against the Sudanese government. Based on indiscretions, Khartoum was not pleased about the presence of international observers at the negotiation table. Chadian government sources referred that, independently from Khartoum’s decision, this afternoon some “indirect talks” will however begin between the sides. Since February 2003, the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) and the SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement) rose in arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, accused of neglecting Darfur, because prevalently inhabited by blacks and of financing Arab militants (Janjaweed) that for years have been causing death and destruction in the sector of Sudan; a year of fighting has already, based on UN estimates, resulted in the internal displacement of a million, 130-thousand refugees (all in neighbouring Chad) and a few thousands of victims. In the past days, the JEM anticipated some of its requests to be presented in the talks, underlining that any type of truce is conditioned to the disarmament of the 'Janjaweed' and the “immobilisation” of the Sudanese aviation and its raids against villages in the western sector of the nation. The Sudanese rebels are also calling for the prompt opening of an international inquiry into Darfur

Hassan al-Turabi, first an ally and then an opposer of Sudanese President Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, was arrested yesterday in Khartoum. The news was released during the night by the ‘Al Jazeera’ television news service in Qatar. Last Sunday 10 soldiers and some sympathisers of the Congress Party, to which Turabi belongs, a high profile Muslim radical. In a correspondence from Nairobi (Kenya), yesterday the British Financial Times among other things wrote about Turabi: “Grey eminence and ideologist of the regime of Khartoum at the time that the US imposed sanctions on the government, on charges of hosting terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, Turabi was rejected by Bashir in 2001 and remained under arrest until last October”. According to the same paper, Turabi was recently “accused of supporting one of the two black African rebel movements of West Sudan” i.e. Darfur, that have been combating for a year against the government troops and the allied Arab militants. According to experts of the International Crisis Group - as specified by the newspaper - Turabi’s allies were recruiting black African Muslims to expand their popular base and reinforce the battle for power underway in Khartoum. The conflict in Darfur – concluded the Financial Times – shook the Bashir regime as rarely did the two decade war in the non-Muslim South. First reports issued during the night by various internet press sources, reminded that Turabi was accused of having inspired and maybe protected even Osama Bin Laden.

The crisis in the remote western region of Darfur appears to be behind the arrest of numerous soldiers and some civilians at the weekend. The troops in question – all close to the opposition party People’s National Congress (PNC) – stand accused of involvement in a coup attempt. Numerous people have underlined the fact that many of them are from Darfur, which has been theatre to an armed conflict between the government forces and local rebel groups for over a year. This crisis may also explain the contemporaneous arrest of members of PNC, the party led by the former President of parliament and Islamic ideologue, Hassan al-Turabi. The first to see a possible connection between the arrests and the situation in the west of the country, Turabi has said that the detainees include six party leaders, three of whom are members of the political secretariat. In an interview with the Arab broadcaster ‘Al Jazeera’, the secretary general of the party, Abdallah Hassan Ahmad, reported having been summoned by the Sudanese security forces, who told him that “a coup is being plotted in the States of Darfur and Kordofan, in which the PNC is also involved”. This is not the first time that Khartoum has accused PNC of links with the rebellion in Darfur: last December the head of the Sudanese secret services, General Abdel Karim Abdallah, announced that he had “concrete proof” of the support enjoyed by the rebels from some members of Hassan al-Turabi’s party. The police raided the party headquarters and the homes of numerous party leaders during the same period. In February 2003, two rebel movements, Jem and SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement), took up arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, which they accuse of neglecting the region and of backing militia of Arab predators (known as Janjaweed), who have tormented the predominantly black population in this part of Sudan for years. According to United Nations estimates, the fighting has left several thousand people dead and created a million internally displaced people, while 130,000 refugees have sought shelter in neighbouring Chad

The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) on Friday released a Chinese engineer they had held since 14 March, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The SLA rebel group which is fighting in the Darfur region had detained two Chinese working in the western Darfur region on 14 March, but the second one had escaped a week ago, said the ICRC in a statement issued on Saturday.
The engineer was working for a Chinese company drilling for oil in the northern part of Darfur, Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN on Monday. He said the Chinese had been operating in the area for "some five years".
Li Aijung had been handed over to the ICRC in its capacity as a neutral intermediary in the vicinity of Nyala, the capital of Southern Darfur State, with the full agreement of all the parties concerned, said the statement.
He was later flown to the capital, Khartoum, and handed over to the Sudanese foreign ministry and the Chinese embassy, it added.

Fighting has broken out between the Dinkas of Aluakluak Payam [location] of Yirol County and those of the Akot and Pacuong payams of Rumbek County, resulting in a number of deaths, injuries and displacements, according to a report issued by the NGO PACT on 24 March. 
It said the fighting, which broke out on 16 March, had also led to looting of property, and was affecting about 15,000 people from Aluakluak and 5,000 from Akot and Pacuong. "The fighting mostly affected the people of Aluakluak Payam who are now displaced from their homes and are now staying under trees," the report said. 
The report recommends that food distributions to the affected populations be undertaken "without delay". It also calls for the provision of household items, such as pots, blankets and mosquito nets, as well as seeds, which they have lost to looting. 
The report recommends that agencies concerned in peace-building undertake projects to normalise the "relationship between the two communities through peace and reconciliation". It also stresses the need for the perpetrators of the violence "to be brought to book immediately". 
Yirol and Rumbek are neighbouring counties in the Buhayrat [Lakes] region of Bahr al-Ghazal. The inhabitants are Dinkas, the great majority of whom are agro-pastoralists. Although the people of the two counties share the same language and culture and often intermarry, long-standing internecine strife has rendered their relations very fragile.

The "negative trends" in the peace talks between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the deteriorating conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region are linked, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank. 
"The fate of the IGAD [Inter-Governmental Authority on Development] peace process remains linked to Darfur developments," said the ICG in a report issued on Thursday. "The international community has responded to the Darfur crisis largely with quiet diplomacy, fearing too much pressure on Khartoum would endanger the IGAD peace talks. It is clearer by the day, however, that the conflict there must be resolved if there is to be overall peace in Sudan." 
Since January 2004 - with a three-week break for a Muslim pilgrimage - the two sides have been negotiating the future status of three disputed areas - the Nuba mountains, southern Blue Nile and oil-rich Abyei - resulting in a deadlock over the latter. 
ICG said Khartoum had "slowed" the IGAD negotiations earlier this year to give itself time for a major offensive in Darfur. "The government used the three-week break [for the Hajj pilgrimage] until talks resumed on 17 February to launch a massive military offensive in Darfur it hoped would remove any reason to negotiate further with the SLA/JEM [Sudan Liberation Army/Justice and Equality Movement] rebels [in Darfur]," it said. 
IRIN was unable to obtain a comment from the Sudanese government on the ICG report. But earlier this week, the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi issued a statement saying it was committed to a peaceful solution in Darfur "through political dialogue". 
Simultaneously, the international community had remained divided on how to react to the escalating conflict, said ICG. While the diplomatic community in Khartoum explored vehicles for international action, such as a statement by a senior UN humanitarian official before the UN Security Council, the UK, US and other members had advocated a lower profile. 
The government "took advantage of this disagreement to pursue its military campaign" while blaming the collapse of ceasefire talks with the SLA in mid-December on the latter, said ICG. In reality, "it [the government] walked away without meeting them [the rebels]", after less than one day, the ICG noted. "The talks never began, and the parties never met," while the Chadian mediators announced that the rebels had made "unreasonable demands". 
In February, the government claimed victory in Darfur, declaring an amnesty for rebels who surrendered their arms within one month. Both rebel groups rejected the call and launched offensives. 
According to ICG, the international community urgently needs to bring more focused pressure to bear on both the government and SPLM/A delegations in Naivasha, the venue of the peace talks in Kenya, to reach a final settlement, while observer countries - the US, UK, Italy and Norway - need to condemn violations of international humanitarian law in Darfur more vocally. 
"It has taken more than a year of war for the international community to begin to realise that the Darfur crisis requires its full engagement," it said. 
Domenico Polloni, the deputy head of mission at the Italian embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, acknowledged that while the international community had continually pushed for humanitarian access in Darfur, the political process "had come late". This was due to the lack of access to the region, which had resulted in a lack of information about what was going on there, he told IRIN. 
But "high-level increasing pressure" was being exerted on all sides to resolve the Darfur conflict, he said, adding that peace talks with the Darfur rebels due to open in Chad in the coming days would not take place without that pressure. "We are not here to tell the Sudanese about war and peace in their country," he added. "We are trying to bring about an environment that is conducive to decision-making by them." 
Observers are hoping for a breakthrough in either the IGAD peace process or in peace talks on Darfur, which would mutually complement one other. 
The transition period following a future settlement between the government and the SPLM/A - in which a constitutional review is foreseen - "would be a good opportunity to address the political aspects of the Darfur crisis, but within a broader framework of addressing the issue of marginalisation of various areas", an EU official commented. 
On 19 March, US Senator John Danforth put forward a proposal in Naivasha calling for a referendum that offers Abyei the choice of joining southern Sudan or remaining in the north, and detailing the sharing of oil revenue, which observers are hoping will resolve the lack of progress at the talks in Naivasha. 

Twenty-one people died and seven were injured – including a child of six months - during an episode of ethnic violence in southern Chad, ‘Radio Lotiko’, the Sarh (southern Chad) community radio, has told MISNA. The episode dates back to Sunday, although news of the massacre only emerged yesterday. Roughly 20 armed men belonging to the Awazmé tribe (Muslim nomadic cattle herders) raided the village of Maiibogo, in the department of Mandoul (southern Chad), which is populated primarily by Christian farmers, opening fire on the inhabitants. The Chadian security forces subsequently managed to arrest many of the perpetrators of the attack. These include the tribal chief Delil Abdel Ali, who told the authorities and a reporter for ‘Radio Lotiko’ that the incursion had been a reprisal for the assassination of his brother, who was found dead in the same area last week. The man stressed that the choice of village was incidental, as there was no evidence linking the inhabitants of Maiibogo to his brother’s murder. During a visit to the site three days ago, Prime Minister of Chad, Haroun Kabadi, said that the perpetrators of the massacre would receive an exemplary punishment. Meanwhile, the appeal court prosecutor arrived in Cumbra (capital of Mandoul) yesterday to open the investigation into the attack and co-ordinate the work of roughly 200 soldiers deployed in the area, whose task it will be to track down the raiders and their accomplices. Local sources have told MISNA that the Maiibogo attack is out of the ordinary and that the two groups have always lived together in relative tranquillity, with the exception of the occasional incident of cattle the

The steadily worsening, ethnically polarising conflict in Darfur now seriously threatens peace and stability throughout Sudan and in neighbouring Chad. 
Darfur Rising: Sudan's New Crisis, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, a copy of which is attached, examines how the rapid onset of war in the western region of Darfur - now one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with thousands dead and some 830,000 uprooted from their homes - endangers the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) peace talks between the government and the insurgent Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA). 
"Sudan, where prospects for peace had begun to look so promising in 2003, has become a potential horror story in 2004", says John Prendergast, Special Adviser to the President at ICG. "The IGAD talks in Naivasha, Kenya, must not be allowed to deadlock, and a parallel process needs to begin to address both the humanitarian and political crises in Darfur". 
Open warfare erupted in Darfur in early 2003 when two loosely allied rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked military installations. Rebels in Darfur have not been participants in the IGAD peace talks, and they decided to fight lest decisions on power and wealth-sharing for the entire country be taken without them. 
The rebels also took up arms to protect their communities against a twenty-year campaign by government-backed militias recruited among groups of Arab extraction in Darfur and Chad. These "Janjaweed" militias have, over the past year, received greatly increased government support to clear civilians from areas considered disloyal. Militia attacks and a scorched-earth government offensive have led to massive displacement, indiscriminate killings, looting and mass rape - resulting in the depopulation of entire areas inhabited by the Fur, Zaghawa, Massaleit, and other smaller groups of African origin. The Khartoum regime has acted with impunity in Darfur, confident that the international community will not react decisively for fear of harming prospects at the IGAD talks. 
It has taken more than a year of war in the region for the international community to begin to realise that the Darfur crisis requires its full engagement. Having invested so much in Sudan's peace, the U.S., the UK, and other interested countries have a responsibility to ensure that the Darfur conflict is addressed, in order to give the IGAD process a real chance for success. Talks open soon in Ndjamena between the government of Sudan and the two rebels groups about a humanitarian ceasefire, but it is essential that the parties also discuss the political issues behind the conflict. 
"The international community must make the Sudanese government realise it can no longer be treated as a partner in the peace process if Darfur continues to burn", says Stephen Ellis, Africa Director of ICG. 

Conflict in Northern Darfur State of western Sudan is devastating social infrastructure and placing an increasing number of people at risk of hunger, according to agencies working in the region. 
A survey conducted by an NGO, Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), in February and March revealed that 40,000 households in Northern Darfur have missed this year's cropping seasons due to displacement. Many of those who did cultivate, had their crops stolen. 
A spokeswoman for the World Food Programme, Laura Melo, told IRIN on Thursday the conflict was having a "detrimental impact" on food production in the region, which was already debilitated by four consecutive years of drought. 
While the conflict had started in February 2003, it had intensified during the May planting season, she said. Many of those who had managed to plant were forced to leave their homes before the harvest or had their fields burned. Others have had their homes and food stocks burned and looted during attacks, she said. 
With no signs of an improvement in the conflict, the next planting season in April/May may also be "very limited", Melo warned. This would have a major impact on food availability and leave people dependent on food aid for another year, she said. 
"A widespread humanitarian disaster looms for the population of Darfur unless large-scale humanitarian assistance is rapidly made possible," commented a humanitarian source working in the region. The cyclical 'hunger gap' period from March until rains began in June was likely to be severely exacerbated this year, she said. 
Meanwhile, many market systems in the region have been destroyed and general insecurity on roads has halted commercial transport, according to ITDG. All markets in the Jabal Si area and most markets in Kabkabiyah were closed, this in a region where crop failure last year made most people dependent on markets for food, it said. 
According to the survey, 60 percent of villages in Northern Darfur, home to about 1.5 million people, have been destroyed, burned or abandoned because of fear of attacks from the warring parties. Even in undestroyed villages, over 50 percent of households had migrated, the report said, some of them to hide in mountainous areas and others fleeing temporarily to avoid either aerial bombardments or compulsory recruitment by the region's two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. 
Much of the region's infrastructure and trees have also been destroyed. In Kabkabiyah, over 150 irrigation pumps had been lost, damaged or looted from farms, and 35 shallow wells destroyed, ITDG reported. Fruit trees in the region, a valuable sources of food, had also been damaged or cut down - including almost 3,000 mango trees, 200 guava trees, 1,200 grapefruit trees, 900 citrus trees, and 220 banana trees. 
According to the NGO, prices had risen to as high as 10 goats for one sack of millet, from one to two goats per sack before the conflict escalated.

Conflict in Northern Darfur State of western Sudan is devastating social infrastructure and placing an increasing number of people at risk of hunger, according to agencies working in the region.
A survey conducted by an NGO, Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), in February and March revealed that 40,000 households in Northern Darfur have missed this year's cropping seasons due to displacement. Many of those who did cultivate, had their crops stolen. 
A spokeswoman for the World Food Programme, Laura Melo, told IRIN on Thursday the conflict was having a "detrimental impact" on food production in the region, which was already debilitated by four consecutive years of drought. 
While the conflict had started in February 2003, it had intensified during the May planting season, she said. Many of those who had managed to plant were forced to leave their homes before the harvest or had their fields burned. Others have had their homes and food stocks burned and looted during attacks, she said.
With no signs of an improvement in the conflict, the next planting season in April/May may also be "very limited", Melo warned. This would have a major impact on food availability and leave people dependent on food aid for another year, she said.
"A widespread humanitarian disaster looms for the population of Darfur unless large-scale humanitarian assistance is rapidly made possible," commented a humanitarian source working in the region. The cyclical 'hunger gap' period from March until rains began in June was likely to be severely exacerbated this year, she said.
Meanwhile, many market systems in the region have been destroyed and general insecurity on roads has halted commercial transport, according to ITDG. All markets in the Jabal Si area and most markets in Kabkabiyah were closed, this in a region where crop failure last year made most people dependent on markets for food, it said. 
According to the survey, 60 percent of villages in Northern Darfur, home to about 1.5 million people, have been destroyed, burned or abandoned because of fear of attacks from the warring parties. Even in undestroyed villages, over 50 percent of households had migrated, the report said, some of them to hide in mountainous areas and others fleeing temporarily to avoid either aerial bombardments or compulsory recruitment by the region's two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.
Much of the region's infrastructure and trees have also been destroyed. In Kabkabiyah, over 150 irrigation pumps had been lost, damaged or looted from farms, and 35 shallow wells destroyed, ITDG reported. Fruit trees in the region, a valuable sources of food, had also been damaged or cut down - including almost 3,000 mango trees, 200 guava trees, 1,200 grapefruit trees, 900 citrus trees, and 220 banana trees.
According to the NGO, prices had risen to as high as 10 goats for one sack of millet, from one to two goats per sack before the conflict escalated.

As the Sudanese government and rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) inch closer to a comprehensive peace deal, observers say the chasm between the north-south accord and east-west discord appears to be growing ever wider. 
Opposition groups at the east-west extremities of the country complain of exclusion from the peace accord. For them, this simply reinforces the marginalisation they say they have felt for years. A year-long, full blown conflict in the west between the government and rebels in the Darfur region is gathering momentum as prospects for a deal approach. And now rebels in the east, who have hitherto been relatively quiet, have threatened to remobilise unless they are included in the peace process. 

Marginalisation

Regional analysts point out that there is a growing sense of regional identity among diverse communities sharing the same experience of marginalisation. 
Marianne Nolte, a conflict analyst working for the UN in Sudan, notes that increased opposition to the bipolar structure of the peace process, brokered by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has led the mediators to accommodate some demands for a greater share of political power and wealth. For example, she says, IGAD has prevailed on the government to hold parallel talks (albeit fraught) on the status of three disputed regions - Southern Blue Nile, Abyei and the Nuba Mountains. (i) 
"This has encouraged other regional groups, for example from eastern Sudan and Darfur, to intensify their political and military pressure on the government to be included in the peace process," she says. 
Justice Africa, a UK-based think tank, notes that eastern Sudan, along with Darfur, are among the most neglected regions of the country and have the lowest proportion of people holding positions in the central government. 

Resumption of war 

Observers warn of simmering conflict in the eastern region, particularly by the indigenous Beja people - who are Muslims but not Arabs - and whose grievances are essentially the same as those faced by the Darfur rebels. The Beja say there has never been any sign of the government in their area - basics such as education and medical care have been completely overlooked. 
The various groups making up the Beja are represented by the Beja Congress which is a member of the Asmara-based Sudan opposition grouping, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). 
Salah Barqueen of the Beja Congress is a leader of the civil administration in the "liberated areas" of eastern Sudan and says his group's armed forces are the second largest in the area after the SPLA. 
He says the NDA controls a swathe of territory from Karora to Hameshkoreb, which it wrested from government forces in October 2002 after weeks of heavy fighting. Bejaland, he adds, covers some 100 sq km in eastern Sudan and 20 percent is under NDA control. He insists the Beja are not seeking secession, and want to be part of a federal system. "One Sudan for all Sudanese," he states. 
Salah says there has been no fighting for two months now to give the Naivasha peace talks in Kenya a chance. 
"We are giving them [the government and SPLM] a chance to include us," he said in the Eritrean capital Asmara. "But we are not going to wait much longer." 
His fellow NDA members concur. NDA chairman Moulana Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani is currently involved in intensive negotiations to ensure that the Alliance's members are included in the phase of the negotiations concerning power-sharing. 
In February, the Sudanese government broke off negotiations with the NDA, saying that its newest member - the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) rebel group from Darfur which joined earlier this year - was fighting a war and therefore could not take part in peace negotiations. 
NDA Leadership Council member Awad Elbari Elsir expressed regret over Khartoum's decision. An agreement signed in Jeddah between the NDA and the Sudan government in December 2003 provided a basis for power-sharing talks between the two sides. Awad said he hoped the Khartoum authorities would restart the negotiations. 
"We are trying to explain to the government that the SLA's membership of the NDA means it is seeking peace," he said. 
Motaz Osman El Fahal, NDA Executive Bureau member, added that the NDA is now actively seeking participation in the Kenya peace talks. 
"This is our last chance to join the process," he told IRIN. "The issue of power-sharing concerns all groups in Sudan, not just the Khartoum authorities and the SPLM." 
"We will see if there is a way, but if not we will continue to fight," he warned. "The unity of Sudan will not happen without an all-inclusive agreement and there will not be peace." 
The NDA believes that the international community has paid no attention to the concerns of the marginalised groups and that it ignores warnings of the resumption of war at its own peril. 
The Alliance's various fighting forces say they are ready to resume combat at any moment. All warn that the situation in the east could mirror that in the west. 

Containment

Abdel-Aziz Khalid, chairman of the Sudan National Alliance/Sudan Allied Forces (SNA/SNF), another NDA member, says that the troops are exercising a policy of containment at the moment. 
"The front is calm except for minor operations," he said. "But we want to exhaust the enemy to stop them from moving forces to the west. We are increasing the tension, they don't know when we will attack." 
He acknowledged that his group has connections with the western rebels. "There is coordination," he said. "Both fronts are putting pressure on Khartoum." 
But the government has dismissed any potential threat from the various NDA forces, although it says it recognises the NDA as a "political player" because the SPLM is part of it. 
"The NDA decided some months ago to renounce violence as a means of achieving its ends," Sudanese government spokesman Said Khatib told IRIN. "Until they explain this [the SLA membership] it looks like relations with the government will remain suspended." 
The SLA and the Beja Congress officially joined forces in January stating that their grievances were essentially the same and henceforth they would oppose the government from a common platform. 
"The government asks why a fighting force has been accepted into the NDA when peace talks are going on," Salah explains. "But we are also a fighting force." 

NDA Strengthened ? 

Observers point out that the SLA's membership of the NDA could strengthen the Alliance's negotiating position with the Khartoum, which has been trying to organise peace talks with the Darfur rebels - now under the glare of the international community. 
"The SLA made a smart political move in applying for admission to the NDA," Justice Africa points out. The NDA, it says, remains a negotiating forum whereby power-sharing in the north could be accomplished. 
The Alliance meanwhile has dismissed rumours of a split, caused by reports of the possible entry into government of the traditionalist Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) - one of the strongest members of the NDA. NDA chairman Mirghani is also the DUP leader. 
Bakri al Khalifa Ahmed, a member of the DUP president's office, told IRIN this was misinformation created by the Khartoum government. "Khartoum is trying to decapitate the NDA by spreading these rumours about the DUP," he says. 
The NDA is firmly behind by the SPLM in the hope that it will negotiate an all-inclusive deal. By remaining part of the NDA, the SPLM could give the Alliance some clout in any future power-sharing talks. 

Neglect

But longstanding and unaddressed humanitarian problems are also pushing the patience of the NDA groups to the limit. Eastern Sudan has been overlooked for years by both the government and the international community. The NDA says the outside world is totally ignorant of a mounting catastrophe in this region. 
Many of the NDA members have their humanitarian wings, and although their intentions are good, their resources are very limited. 
Sheikh Ahmed Ali Betai of the civil administration in the "liberated areas", and a member of one of the most prominent families in the Hameshkoreb area, says the east is a "forgotten problem". 
"We expect a lot of good for the area now it is under the NDA," Sheikh Ahmed told IRIN. "But we urgently need relief services - education, medical and so on." 
Another group, Sudan Future Care, which is allied to the SNF/SAF, is implementing projects to tackle tuberculosis and malnutrition in the areas under NDA control. Its executive director, Dr Sabir Abdin, also bemoans the almost total lack of international activity in the region where quality food is scarce because of the extreme aridity. 
"Our most urgent problems are water, food, health and education in that order," he says. His organisation has also launched an education campaign to stamp out traditional practices such as female circumcision, and the concealment of women by some of the Beja tribes. 
The NDA parties say the only international organisations working in the area are the Samaritans and the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Occasionally some Eritrea-based organisations go into the area. 
The Sudanese government admits that the eastern areas, particularly Bejaland, have been neglected by successive governments since independence. 
"It is a fact, it is one of the least developed areas," Khatib told IRIN. But he stressed that as part of the wealth-sharing agreement in the peace deal, money would be available for the east and elsewhere through the National Reconstruction and Development Fund. 
"The most pressing needs are human development, including health and education," Khatib acknowledged. 

Erithrea

Despite the fact that its headquarters are in Asmara, the NDA is adamant that it is getting no military support from the Eritrean authorities. 
Salah of the Beja Congress says that Eritrean assistance comes in the form of facilitation. The Eritrean authorities allow the NDA members to use the ports for export - for example camels and livestock. 
"We helped them during their 30-year struggle, now they are helping us with civil activities," he says. "They don't give us weapons and they never intervene." 
According to some reports, the Eritreans have been supplying the Darfur rebels in the west but all sides dismiss this as propaganda by the Sudanese authorities. 
"This is far-fetched," says Yemane Gebremeskel, Director of the Eritrean President's Office. "Just think about the logistics." 
"We don't have an agenda of regime change in Sudan," he told IRIN. "If the Sudanese want to change their government, then it's up to them." 
He admitted that relations between Khartoum and Asmara were currently poor, but added that "there are no insurmountable problems". 
The problem was historical, caused by Khartoum's desire to export Islam to the Horn in the mid-1990s. Yemane says they chose to focus on Eritrea first, because they believed that due to its small size it would be easier. "That is the basis of the problem between our countries," he says. "The lack of trust has its roots in the past." 
According to Horn of Africa expert, Professor Lionel Cliffe, "the incursion from Sudanese territory of a multinational group of Islamist guerrillas into the Sahel region of Eritrea in December 1994 proved pivotal in the decline in relations between Khartoum and Asmara."(ii) 
Yemane denies there is a contradiction between Eritrea's professed support for the Sudan peace process and its hosting of Sudanese opposition groups on its territory. 
"The NDA has a political presence here just as it does in many other countries," he says. "The emphasis is on trying to find a political solution to Sudan's problems. If the peace process is successful, the problems will be resolved. The NIF [National Islamic Front] won't monopolise the government." 
Asmara brushes off a recent spate of terrorist activity in the west of the country, near the border with Sudan. Earlier this month, at least three people were killed in a bomb blast at a hotel in the town of Tesseney. Other explosions have been reported, and last year a British geologist was murdered in western Eritrea, as were two local staff members of the international NGO Mercy Corps. 
Eritrea blames these attacks on a Sudan-based Islamic extremist group, the Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement (EIJM), which it says is supported by Khartoum - charges denied by Sudan. 
The government has issued travel regulations for foreign organisations working in Eritrea, requiring them to apply for permission to travel in the country 10 days prior to the journey. Aid workers complain that this could have repercussions on their ability to reach needy people quickly, but Yemane says the measures are in place for security reasons and that the permits are rarely refused. 
He declined to specify the reasons, but said the measures were temporary. But, he added, the government was not concerned by the activities of the EIJM. 
"They don't have a local constituency inside Eritrea," he said. "These attacks are sporadic, like terrorist acts everywhere." 
The EIJM has previously claimed carrying out attacks on the Eritrean military, but denies targeting civilians. 

Inclusivity

Marianne Nolte comments that although the majority of political parties in Sudan are excluded from the formal peace process, they nevertheless have a vital role to play in the country's future. 
"Critics argue however that for democracy to be sustainable in a post-conflict situation in the Sudan, issues like factionalism and lack of internal democracy in political parties urgently need to be addressed," she warns. 
"All hopes are pinned on the Kenyan talks in the apparent belief that if an agreement can be reached that ends the country's longest rebellion, all others will simply fade into insignificance," says the newsletter 'Africa Analysis'. "It is obvious they will not - and they constitute a real danger of future fragmentation." 
Salah is not at all optimistic that a peace deal will hold. Marginalised groups such as the Beja distrust the government intensely and believe Khartoum is being "compelled" to sign a peace deal by countries such as the US in order to have sanctions lifted. 
"If fighting breaks out again, the whole strategy could be changed," he warns. "Now we are fighting for our land, but the fighting can shift. We can even go to Khartoum. If we are forced to, we will." 

References: 
i. Marianne Nolte: 'A plethora of political parties', Development Issues (Institute of Social Studies. Vol 5/no.2/September 2003 
ii. Lionel Cliffe: 'Regional dimensions of conflict in the Horn of Africa', Third World Quarterly. Vol 20. no 1. (1999) 

The government of Sudan has said it is committed to a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in Darfur through political dialogue. "Through political dialogue a final agreement can be reached in the region," said a statement issued by the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday. 
However, the statement said, this did not mean that the government would give up its "constitutional responsibility in defending the country and its citizens, and to ensure their security, safety and the safety of their belongings". International law gave the government the right to enforce law and order within its territorial boundaries for the purpose of ensuring stability and security, it continued. 
The government said it had conveyed "a strong protest" regarding statements made last week by the UN's outgoing Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, who described the conflict as the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis". 
The government said the situation in Darfur was "characterised by marked stability", adding that Khartoum had pursued considerable efforts to develop Darfur. By 2003 there were 786 primary schools in the region, compared with 241 in 1986, it said. In the health sector, the number of hospitals had increased from six to 23 between 1988 and 2001. Health centres had increased from 20 to 44 in the same period. 
The government reiterated that it was "committed to reach a peaceful solution", adding that it had launched an initiative to conclude military operations, and issue a general amnesty and a call for a reconciliation conference for the people of Darfur. 
Last week, the rights group Amnesty International (AI) said Khartoum had made "no progress to ensure the protection of civilians caught up in the conflict in Darfur". "This is not a situation where the central government has lost control," said AI. "Men, women and children are being killed and villages are burnt and looted because the central government is allowing militias aligned to it to pursue what amounts to a strategy of forced displacement through the destruction of homes and livelihood of the farming populations of the region." 
AI said it had received information indicating that "the Sudan government is encouraging the actions of the Janjawid", noting that "for the past year, no member of the Janjawid has been arrested or brought to justice for a single unlawful killing". 
Internationally monitored peace talks between the government and Darfur's two rebel groups - the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement - were due to open in Chad soon, an EU official told IRIN. 
The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003, when the rebels emerged demanding political and economic rights.

With the Sudanese peace talks now at an advanced stage, hope has been kindled in the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) that some of Bangui's woes, caused by fallout from the war across the 1,000-kilometre border, will soon be overcome. 
Since the Sudanese conflict restarted in 1983 between the largely Arab north of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the south, some 37,000 refugees have fled into the southeastern border area of CAR that has remained in a permanent state of insecurity. 

Insecurity

During the dry season running from December through June the SPLA rebels, who control at least two-thirds of the CAR-Sudan border, infiltrate up to 200 km in eastern CAR, occupying towns and villages in their search for food and other commodities, Come Zoumara, the CAR's presidential defence adviser, told IRIN on 12 March. He said certain parts of the CAR were still occupied in November 2003. 
However, all this promises to change, especially with the security agreement signed in September 2003 between the government in Khartoum and the SPLM and their wealth-sharing deal of 8 January. Moreover, after Khartoum gave the CAR government military vehicles its troops have been able to reach Bangouti, 1,500 km east of the capital, after two years of occupation by John Garang's SPLM force, Gen Antoine Gambi, the CAR army chief of staff, said on 13 March during a debate on state-owned Television Centrafricaine. 
"If a peace accord was signed, these incursions and poaching would end," Hamis Hagar Zat, adviser at the Sudanese embassy in Bangui, told IRIN. 
He said that soon after the signing of the anticipated Sudanese peace agreement, the Border Protection Accord of 1982 between CAR and Sudan would apply on the southern part of the common border. The accord is being implemented along one-third of the northern border that is under Khartoum government control. 

Boost for trade 

Sudan's 21-year-old war relegated the easternmost part of the CAR to abject poverty and underdevelopment but, Zat said, if peace were to be restored in southern Sudan people on both sides of the border would be able to trade and develop their regions. In addition, under a climate of peace, Bangui and Khartoum would be able to invoke their 1967 trade accord and rebuild or repair roads linking both countries. 
The accord would facilitate the opening of more markets to the Far East by shipping goods through Port Sudan on the Red Sea, Charles Doubane, the presidential diplomatic adviser, told IRIN on 13 March. 
Presently, CAR relies on the western seaports of Douala in Cameroon, which is barely accessible during the rainy season, and of Pointe-Noire in neighbouring Republic of the Congo, which is also difficult to access even during the dry season. 

Refugees

Sudan's many wars has resulted in at least 37,000 refugees who first came in the 1960s and then in the 1980s and stayed in Camp Mboki, 1,050 km east of Bangui. With a peace accord signed by the government and the SPLA, most of these people would most likely return home. 
In anticipation of this, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reopened its office in Mboki in February to inform people and organise voluntary repatriation. 
"The decision to reopen the UNHCR office was motivated by the progress made in negotiations between the rebels and the [Sudanese] government," Jean-Richard Fabomy, the UNHCR's roving field officer, told IRIN on 4 February. 
He said that the repatriation programme would most likely start in July and be carried out jointly with the Sudanese government. 
However, because people both sides of the border are of the same ethnic groups and often intermarry, those Sudanese born in the CAR may decide to settle in the CAR as they qualify for citizenship, Doubane said.

Demobilisation 

The CAR government has just embarked on a US $13-million disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration (DDR) programme for former fighters after eight years of repeated uprisings. But for the DDR programme to be more effective, Zoumara, who is also CAR's focal point for the World Bank-supported programme, said, "It would be an excellent idea to start the DDR programmes in the two countries at the same time." 
This is because Sudanese rebels could surrender weapons in the CAR so as to benefit from the DDR programme, especially since it would be difficult to distinguish between people from the Zande, Krech, Ndogo and Banda (Balanda in Sudan) groups of both countries. 
The implementation of DDR programmes in the CAR and the Sudan would greatly improve the chances of success for the anticipated Sudanese peace accord.

Communities in northern Bahr al-Ghazal, which are expecting over 100,000 displaced people to return to the region this year, have identified water as their most immediate need, the UN has reported. Food security and health care are next in order of importance. 
The displaced are expected to return to East, South and West Aweil districts following the expected signing of a peace agreement between the government of Sudan and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement. 
The vast numbers expected to return could constitute the largest number and greatest concentration of returns in the whole of southern Sudan, said a recent joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the UN area coordinator in Bahr al-Ghazal. 
Water was urgently needed in the highland areas, the densely populated mid-land areas and on major routes of return, the report stated. Several major routes of return from the north, from where the vast majority of the displaced would be coming, had no water sources at all and presented "a significant danger to the tens of thousands of returnees", it said. 
Currently, about 30 percent of the 1 million people living in the Aweils have neither the resources nor the capacity to feed themselves adequately. Rates of global acute malnutrition were routinely 18 percent and soared to between 20 percent and 30 percent when harvested food ran out during the spring months, the UN reported. 
"It is already an emergency context and should be considered a priority in terms of vulnerability reduction in southern Sudan," it said. 
Vulnerable households needed to be assisted to produce more food and to make use of readily available food sources, such as fish, while assets like goats and chickens needed to be vaccinated, the UN recommended. In addition to water and food, health services also needed to be extended to under-served areas and routes of return, including vaccination and education on public health issues. 
Other recommendations included deploying monitoring teams at key crossing points and routes, and establishing protection booths with information about services, family reunification, mines, justice and HIV/AIDS. Jerry cans, cooking pots and blankets also needed to be provided, as well as modest transport between towns on the northern side of the river Kiir and the main stopping points within the Aweils, it said. 
Before the Sudanese civil war started in 1983, the Aweils were a successful area that exported surplus food to as far away as East Africa. That vibrant commerce had since been largely destroyed by the war, but the cessation of hostilities coupled with a good harvest in 2003 had produced "good levels of food security" and even surpluses in some areas, the UN reported. 
But reports consistently indicated that sufficient humanitarian aid was failing to reach the 30 percent vulnerable people already in the Aweils. "This is the context into which returnees are coming home," the report warned. 
The UN emphasised that services should be provided for both host populations in the region and the returnees. "Making a distinction between the two must be avoided. They are simply the vulnerable." 
Since December 2003, 16,000 people have already returned to the Aweils, according to the UN. 
Sudan is home to between three and four million displaced people, up to two million of whom are in the capital, Khartoum.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the armed groups protagonists of the war underway in the remote Sudan region of Darfur, expressed itself ready to take part in peace negotiations with Khartoum, as long as the meeting is held in a neutral nation. In a statement issued to the press, the JEM underlined that any type of truce is conditioned to the disarmament of the pro-government militias (known as ‘Janjaweed’) and the “immobilisation” of the Sudanese aviation and its raids against villages in the western sector of the nation. The Sudanese rebels also called for the international community to promptly open an inquiry into Darfur. The JEM referred to have not received any formal invitation to the meeting between belligerents of Darfur, announced last Friday by the offices of the Chadian presidency, but in the note there is no mention whether Chad would be an adequate location for the talks. Last month the same rebel movement made serious accusations against the government of Ndjamena, in short refusing the mediation, because it considered Chadian President Idriss Deby too close to the Sudan government. Since February 2003 two rebel movements, the JEM and the SLA-M (Sudan People’s Army-Movement), rose in arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, accused of neglecting Darfur, because inhabited prevalently by blacks, and of financing militias of Arab thieves (Janjaweed) that for years have caused death and destruction in this zone of Sudan; according to UN estimates, after a year of combat some one million people have been internally displaced, 130-thousand refugees (all in neighbouring Chad) and several thousand victims.

According to military sources, the Ugandan armed forces yesterday attacked a group of rebels of the LRA (lord’s Resistance Army) in Bibia, a zone near the border with Sudan, around 80km north-west of Gulu. Ground forces and combat helicopters have reportedly killed 52 rebels. Over the past weeks Kampala regular troops were deployed in the territories along the border with Sudan in an objective to repel the return into Uganda of groups of LRA rebels that take refuge over the border with Sudan. Last month Khartoum, which until a while ago tolerated the presence of the Ugandan rebels in its territory, authorised Kampala to conduct ground operations to discover their bases in South Sudan: the zone in question is however not controlled by Sudan regular forces, but by the rebels of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), the armed faction in conflict for two decades against the Islamic regime of the North. Meanwhile, the rebels continue their actions against the so-called ‘protected camps’, where civilians take refuge and are supposed to be protected by the military. MISNA sources refer that on Saturday a displaced camp hosting some 13-thousand people of the ‘Acholi ethnic group in Lira Palwo (75km from Kitgum), protected by a small military unit, was attacked by the ‘Olum’ (as the rebels are called by the local people). The attack was confirmed by the national Ugandan radio, which spoke of a total defeat of the revels. But based on first reports by MISNA sources, there were victims also among the soldiers and around twenty civilians were transported to the hospital of Kitgum. Since 1986 the LRA rebels, commanded by Joseph Kony, have been devastating the northern Ugandan districts; according to local sources, in 17 years of terror they have killed and tortured tens of thousands of people (at least 100-thousand dead), abducted over 25-thousand children (reduced to slavery or forcedly enrolled in rebels lines) and displaced over a million.

“One of the greatest humanitarian disasters in the world” is underway in Darfur, Musesh Kapila, United Nations (UN) humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan, said on Friday. His comments concerned the situation in the remote western region of Sudan caused by the outbreak of violence in February 2003, which has already created approximately 130,000 refugees, 700,000 internally displaced people (one million, according to other sources) and several thousand dead. Kapila appealed to the international community to intervene, while the UN has said that it is making efforts to kick-start talks with the aim of reaching a ‘humanitarian’ ceasefire to allow aid to be delivered to the local population. Last year two rebel groups rose up in arms against the central Islamic government of Khartoum, accusing it of neglecting Darfur because it is populated by blacks, but also of financing militia of Arab predators (known as Janjaweed), who have wreaked havoc in the area for years. Yesterday, Kapila compared the horrors perpetrated by the Janjaweed with the genocide in Rwanda ten years ago. “It is more than a conflict, it is an organised attempt to erase a population: there are human rights violations with few precedents, perhaps the massacre in Rwanda,” he said, adding in conclusion: “In our opinion it is the most tragic humanitarian crisis in the world, and perhaps also the cruellest war.”[

Scores of people have been killed near Uganda's northeastern border with Sudan by heavily armed Karamojong cattle raiders in three separate attacks on villages near the Kidepo Valley National Park. 
The Ugandan army said 12 people had been confirmed dead, but local officials said up to 60 people were killed. The attacks, the officials said, occurred last week when Jie warriors from Karamoja living near the border, attempted to raid cattle from the neighbouring Toposa. A gun battle ensued in which the Jie were overpowered. 
Lt David Mbiire, the army spokesman for the eastern region, told IRIN on Thursday: "The number we have verified based on bodies recovered is 12. Two of the raids happened in Uganda; one raiding party crossed the border into Sudan." 
However, the Kotido District information officer, Michael Okello told IRIN: "I don't know how many were involved, but I've heard it was a large force. The number I have been given by the villagers is over 60 killed in the raid." 
Mbiire said such raiding expeditions accompanied by gunfire, leading to scores of casualties, were commonplace in the region, in spite of government efforts to dissuade "warrior" communities from attacking each other. 
"This is standard practice," Mbiire said. "The army has since stepped in to deal with them. Thirty-four rustlers have been arrested." 
Uganda's Minister of State for Karamoja Peter T. Lokeris said: "This incident is regrettable, but security forces have restored calm. We shall have to investigate to determine numbers who have perished." 

The United Nations (UN) have demanded the immediate release of the two Chinese engineers abducted in Darfur, the remote western region that is in the grips of a year-long battle between government forces and local rebels, a few days ago. Through a statement by Mukesh Kapila, humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, the UN has strongly condemned the abduction, which has been attributed to the rebels of SLA-M (Sudan’s Liberation Army-Movement), the first movement to take up arms against the Islamic government of Khartoum, which it accuses of taking no interest in Darfur - populated mostly by blacks – and of financing militia of Arab predators who have plagued the area for years. According to diplomats of Beijing, the two Chinese nationals were abducted at the weekend roughly 80 kilometres from the western city of Buram, where they were working on the construction of a well. According to UN sources, several thousand people have died in the fighting in Darfur, while well over a million people have been displaced from their homes. Of these, 130,000 people have taken refuge in neighbouring Chad.

Clashes involving a number of government-backed militias and government forces in the Shilluk Kingdom region of southern Sudan are resulting in an increasing number of deaths and displacements. 
On 11 March, militias and government forces from Malakal attacked villages west of Awajwok including Alaki, the village of the Shilluk king, according to the Fashoda Relief and Rehabilitation Association (FRRA). The FRRA is the humanitarian wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-United (SPLM/U) which realigned with the SPLM/Army (SPLM/A) in October 2003. 
In Alaki, houses were set on fire and cattle driven away by attacking forces, Gabriel Otor Marko, the FRRA executive director, said on Thursday. The militias were reinforced by government forces in gunboats on the River Nile, who then attacked Nyilwak, where they dispersed a large civilian population. "An unknown number of people were killed or wounded, houses set on fire and properties looted," he said. On 10 March militias had also attacked the villages of Adodo, displacing its civilians. 
Since the SPLM-U, led by Lam Akol - who split from the SPLM/A in 1991 - realigned with the SPLM/A last October, tensions and violence in the region have been flaring up. A regional analyst told IRIN that some of Akol's Shilluk forces had rejected the merger and were involved in the recent violence, but that it was unclear how many. 
Other government-backed militia leaders operating in the region include Gabriel Tang Ginye from Fangak, Simon Gatwic Gwal from Waat, Reth Gai Tual from Nasir, Paulino Matib from Bentiu, and Thomas Mabor Dhol, the FRRA stated. Government soldiers are based nearby in Malakal, Fashoda and Tonga. 
The reasons for the in-fighting and Shilluk forces attacking their own people remain unclear. Personal enrichment was a key factor, an analyst told IRIN, as well as Khartoum's keenness to control areas along the White Nile. 
Since the beginning of March, there has been an increasing number of incidences in the region. Between 5 and 7 March civilians in Dinyo and Nyijwado were reportedly attacked by militias and government forces. Many of them had already been displaced to the area in January from Nyibanyo in similar attacks. About 3,000 fled to Nyilwak, while others were killed and wounded, the FRRA reported. 
On 7 March Obay and Pakang were also reportedly attacked by army and militias, killing nine civilians and wounding nine others. A dispensary and school were looted, a headmaster killed, cattle driven away and civilian houses set on fire. The populations of the two villages reportedly fled. 
On 4 March government and militias abducted eight women from Dinyo, taking them to New Fangak, where they are still being held; some of them were lactating and had left behind their babies. 
The numbers are impossible to verify independently. 
Humanitarian agencies working in the region have had to evacuate their staff several times since the SPLM-United split in October 2003. According to the FRRA, about 50 percent of the population in an area known as Zone 1 has been destabilised as a result. 
"It is very unfortunate that this man-made human disaster occurs while the agreement on the cessation of hostilities between the SPLM/A and government is still in force and when the two parties are on the threshold of a peace agreement, making it very difficult for the communities to contemplate the advent of a lasting peace," said the statement. 
Meanwhile, peace talks between the government and the SPLM/A are continuing in neighbouring Kenya, but have reached deadlock over the status of three disputed regions in the centre of Sudan - the Nuba mountains, southern Blue Nile and, in particular, oil-rich Abyei. 
A cessation of hostilities agreement has been in place between the government and the SPLM/A since October 2002.

Peace negotiations for Sudan's war-torn Darfur region are on the horizon, with the government agreeing for the first time to attend talks that are internationally monitored.
An EU official told IRIN on Thursday that the government had agreed to meet the Darfur rebel leaders in Chad with representatives from the EU and others present as observers. He said the details surrounding the talks were "still under discussion".
An official at the US embassy in Khartoum told IRIN the matter was still being discussed, but that the "US will be present if talks take place". There was no comment available from the Sudanese government on Thursday.
The presence of international monitors is a basic precondition to talks for both Darfur's rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Chad, which mediated talks with the SLA until they broke down in mid-December, is deemed by both groups to be too friendly with Khartoum to be a neutral mediator.
Dr Khalil Ibrahim, the exiled chairman of the JEM, confirmed to IRIN from France that he would be prepared to attend talks if they were monitored by "neutral supervisors" in a suitable country, which could include Chad. "Under no circumstances" would he attend talks in Sudan, he said, adding that he was waiting to hear about concrete plans and was "ready at any time".
Abd al-Wahid Muhammad Ahmad al-Nur, the SLA chairman, told IRIN he would also send a delegation to internationally monitored talks in Chad.
Meanwhile, government-backed Arab militias in Darfur continue to kill, rape and displace non-Arab civilians in increasingly frequent and vicious attacks. Over 700,000 people have been displaced, while 110,000 have fled across the border to neighbouring Chad.
In a separate development, the UN said on Thursday it was "deeply concerned" at the recent detention by the SLA of two Chinese water engineers working in Southern Darfur. Abd al-Wahid denied the charge, accusing the Sudanese-backed Janjawid militias of having kidnapped the two men. 

At least three people have been killed and 18 injured in a protest at a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of the capital Khartoum. According to reports cited by the news agency ‘Reuters’, the government is trying to move people from an illegal camp occupied by refugees from the western region of Darfur, the scene of intense fighting between local rebels and government forces. In a statement, the police have confirmed the death of a man and two women during a revolt in the provisional camp of Mayo, roughly 20 kilometres from the centre of the city. Some witnesses have reported that the police used tear gas to disperse the crowd, which intervened in defence of a group of students who were distributing food and sanitary equipment to the displaced. A police agent, requesting anonymity, said that two of his colleagues had also been killed in the clashes. However, for now the police have only confirmed the civilian casualties. The ‘rioters’ in the refugee camp allegedly used sticks and stones. The conflict in Darfur has displaced one million people from their homes; 2,300 IDPs are located in this area, while 100,000 refugees have crossed the border into neighbouring Chad; these are now gathered in improvised camps in terrible living conditions.[

Two Chinese workers were abducted in the past days in Darfur, the remote western region of Sudan theatre to a year of conflict between the government and rebels. The news was reported by the Chinese 'Xinhua' agency, specifying that according to the Attaché of the Beijing Embassy in Khartoum, the two men are in the hands of the two rebels movements – SLA-M (Sudan Liberation Army-Movement) and JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) – since February 2003 in combat against the Sudanese Islamic government, accused of neglecting Darfur because prevalently inhabited by ‘blacks’ and of financing militias of Arab thieves (known as Janjaweed), that for years have been causing death and destruction in this part of Sudan along the border with Chad. Based on the reconstruction provided by Beijing diplomats, the two Chinese were abducted over the weekend around 80km from the western city of Buram, where they were working on the construction of a well. Meanwhile, United Nations sources referred that in the past days Chadian troops crossed over the border with Sudan and entered Darfur on the tracks of the Janjaweed. The operation was launched to recuperate around a hundred heads of cattle stolen in the past days by the Arab thieves in some of the makeshift Sudanese refugee camps over the border. Despite the announcement by the government of having reinforced security along the over 1000km frontier with Chad, the Janjaweed (that many believe are financed directly by Khartoum) in the past months have intensified incursions over the border against Sudanese civilians, stealing the few meagre belongings they fled Sudan with. According to UN sources, the fighting in Darfur has so far caused over a million displaced, 130-thousand refugees (all in Chad) and has claimed various thousands of lives, between 3-7-thousand depending on the source.

The government of Sudan has made "no progress to ensure the protection of civilians caught up in the conflict in Darfur", the rights group Amnesty International (AI) said on Tuesday.
"This is not a situation where the central government has lost control," said AI. "Men, women and children are being killed and villages are burnt and looted because the central government is allowing militias aligned to it to pursue what amounts to a strategy of forced displacement through the destruction of homes and livelihood of the farming populations of the region."
AI said it had received information indicating that "the Sudan government is encouraging the actions of the Janjawid".
Sudanese refugees in Chad had described the Janjawid attacking villages accompanied by soldiers and often wearing army uniforms, it said. Some Sudanese army soldiers had also described how they were following the Janjawid in attacks on villages, which, they said, were clearly civilian targets. 
"For the past year, no member of the Janjawid has been arrested or brought to justice for a single unlawful killing," AI noted.
During an attack by Janjawid on at least 10 villages in the Tawilah District between Kabkabiyah and Al-Fashir in Northern Darfur, between 27 and 29 February, more than 80 people were killed, AI reported. 
In Western Darfur, on 6 March, the Janjawid militias with three Land-Cruisers and some 60 men on horseback attacked al-Kuraynik, east of Al-Junaynah, the capital of Western Darfur. They allegedly killed 15 villagers, including a child. Two days later, three children were among 12 people reportedly killed in Aysh Barrah, a village west of Al-Junaynah, near the border with Chad. 
In Gukor, not far from Al-Junaynah, at least 5,000 fleeing villagers were said to be gathered without food, shelter or medicine, while the town itself was also occupied by thousands of displaced people. The small town of Murnei, south of Al-Junaynah, was also swollen with refugees, with insufficient food and medicines and no doctor, while diarrhoea and fever were rife and five to 10 people were reported to be dying each day, AI reported.