NEWS IN BRIEF
2001
Second semester
2001 December 20th - 2002 January 3rd
2001 November 29th - December 6th
2001 October 25th - November 5th
2001 August 28th - September 3rd
Nuba humanitarian assessment under way
Khartoum calls on Washington not to fund NDA
Rebel alarm at Khartoum's reported purchase of new MiGs
US proposals "not the basic issues" – Bashir
Bahr al-Ghazal IDPs face food insecurity
Nuba assessment mission to start next week
UN adopts resolution on emergency assistance
Nuba assessment mission to start next week
IAC emphasises need for peace, humanitarian access
ICRC remembers colleagues, addresses impunity
UN adopts resolution on emergency assistance
US reports progress on humanitarian access
Rebels tell of "fierce fighting" in Nuba Mountains
State of emergency extended
US criticised over biological weapons alert
SPLM/A speaks of ''fierce fighting'' in Nuba Mountains
Khartoum calls for more assistance for refugees
Interview with Francis Deng
Kenya – Sudan : UN official calls for refugee law
Khartoum calls for more assistance for refugees
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Action
on a draft United Nations resolution on protection of and assistance to
internally displaced people (IDPs) stalled on Wednesday after Sudan expressed
concern that the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on IDPs,
Francis Deng, had drawn details on Sudan from a database which included
information provided by the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army
(SPLM/A) in southern Sudan, as well as by organisations the government
said were operating illegally in Sudan.
Ilham
Ibrahim Muhammad Ahmad, Sudan's delegate to the UN General Assembly's Third
Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), said that a footnote in
the draft resolution referring to the database should be deleted.
Ahmad
said her country had worked with others in offering amendments which could
have led to consensus, but that none if these were taken into consideration.
Sudan,
with all due respect and appreciation to the Special Representative on
IDPs, had asked for discussions and comments on his proposals, she said.
Therefore, Sudan did not consider itself obliged to support the resolution.
Deng
had visited Sudan recently and met senior government officials, but, while
reading the part of the report concerning Sudan, officials had been surprised
to learn that the database on which he relied had "included information
provided by the rebellion movement in the south, as well as organisations
operating illegally in Sudan," Ahmad said.
Most
relief organisations working in SPLM/A-held areas of southern Sudan have
been operating on the basis of documents issued by the rebel movement,
which are not recognised by the government.
The
Khartoum government maintains that such organisations - a small number
of whom have become closely associated with the rebel movement in the public
eye - are operating in Sudan illegally, since it has never issued visa
or work documents.
In
recent months, Khartoum has been trying to ensure that the UN and international
aid agencies apply to it for visas for staff working anywhere in Sudan,
and negotiations are ongoing.
Addressing
the Third Committee on Wednesday, Ahmad said Sudan also deeply regretted
that Deng's report on IDPs did not include any governmental source, since
there was plenty of information and figures available on the protection
of IDPs.
While
Norway, a co-sponsor of the draft resolution, agreed to strike out the
footnote referring to the IDP database, Ahmad said text references to the
database should also be dropped.
Norway
(a keen advocate of humanitarian intervention for IDPs, and which
has supported the Norwegian Refugee Council's Global IDP database
project, http://www.db.idpproject.org/), declined to drop references to the database,
saying there had been two open informal consultations on the resolution,
the text had been discussed, and the reference to the database should
not be deleted.
The
matter was postponed until the differences could be resolved.
At
the start of the Third Committee meeting, Bacre Ndiaye (Director of the
New York office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNHCHR) had
read a statement on behalf of Deng, who was unable to participate due to
illness.
He
highlighted the fact that refugee law was not directly applicable to IDPs,
despite the fact that they were often forced to leave their homes and found
themselves in refugee-like situations, because international law defined
refugees as persons who had fled across international borders.
However,
because of the similarity of their situations, certain provisions of refugee
law were useful to a certain extent in formulating guidelines to
assist IDPs, Ndiaye added.
Deng
incorporated some of these in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
presented to UNHCHR in 1998, which have since been the basis of statements
and resolutions by governments and the General Assembly.
Ahmad
said on Tuesday (27 November), when the draft resolution on IDPs was introduced
to the Third Committee, that the draft mentioned the International Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement, and all delegations were aware that
those recommendations could not be considered mandatory or binding, because
they had not been subject to negotiations within an intergovernmental framework,
with the participation of all states and the United Nations community.
Asked
about Deng's information-gathering on IDPs, Ndiaye noted that the Special
Representative had visited about 25 countries around the world, and had
met officials from central and local governments, representatives of international
organisations, international and local NGOs, representatives of civil society
and those of internally displaced communities.
In
his report, Deng had used a wide range of sources of information, "including
governmental, intergovernmental and nongovernmental sources, as well as
scholarly and research institutions in countries throughout the world,"
Ndiaye added.
UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported on Sudan in October that the UN and
its humanitarian partners "remain strongly committed to assisting an estimated
4 million IDPs countrywide, and to facilitating longer-term solutions in
the current context of endemic conflict". IDPs were particularly concentrated
in the Khartoum area, he added.
In
1999, the UN estimated the distribution of IDPs within government-controlled
areas as: some 1.8 million IDPs in Khartoum State, 500,000 in the east
and the transition zone (between and overlapping government-held areas
in the north and rebel-held areas in the south), and 300,000 in the southern
states, according to the Sudan profile on the Global IDP Database. The
latest comprehensive estimate for the southern sector dated back to a USAID
survey in 1994, which confirmed the presence of 1.5 million IDPs, it added.
The
estimated figure of 4 million IDPs means Sudan has the largest displaced
population in the world, though the complexity and fluidity of the IDP
situation in rebel-held areas, inadequate information about the situation
in the transition area, and disagreement as to the displacement effects
associated with oil production make it difficult to pin down the exact
number countrywide.
Assessments
of the IDP situation are further complicated by nomadic migration patterns
in some areas, as well as movements related to people searching for emergency
humanitarian assistance in the face of drought, flooding and other crisis
situations.
(IRIN,
Nairobi, 29-11-2001)
Relief
officials working in southern Sudan on Wednesday confirmed the Sudanese
government bombing of the villages of Malwal Kon, a significant relief
centre, and Madhol, in Aweil East county, northern Bahr al-Ghazal on Monday.
Antonov
bombers had dropped six bombs on Malwal Kon, including one disconcertingly
close to a relief centre, and five on Madhol, a few kilometres to the east,
aid workers told IRIN.
They
also said that Antonovs had dropped another 10 bombs, a little way south
of Malwal Kon, possibly on Dhiak, on Wednesday morning. There were no details
available of casualties or damage.
The
nongovernmental organisation Christian Solidarity International (CSI),
which has a history of mutual antipathy with the Sudanese government in
Khartoum, reported on Tuesday that a government Antonov aircraft had killed
two civilians and injured one when it bombed the villages of Malwal Kon
and Rup Wot in Aweil East on Monday.
The
attack on Malwal Kon had narrowly missed a relief compound and the local
Pentecostal church, it added.
The
NGO Tearfund on Wednesday said that one of six bombs dropped on Malwal
Kon had missed one of its therapeutic feeding centres, though one it had
closed in October when malnutrition rates showed signs of improving after
the traditional 'hunger gap'.
Malwal
Kon, a significant and strategic village in this northern part of Bahr
al-Ghazal, has a history of being bombed, according to aid sources who
spoke to IRIN on Wednesday.
In
addition to being quite a high-profile centre for relief interventions,
it was a place of refuge for civilians fleeing raids by the [government-aligned]
Popular Defence Forces (PDF) closer to the Khartoum-Wau railway line when
the government's resupply and reinforcement train was in the area, and
an important link with the trading centre of Warawa to the north, they
said.
There
was some concern among relief agencies, however, that the concentrated
bombing in Aweil might be an effort by the government to continue and consolidate
military gains made in western Bahr al-Ghazal since mid-October - when
it took control of Raga town from the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army
(SPLM/A).
CSI
on Saturday criticised the government for bombing two other villages in
Aweil East, Kuei Wiir and Pariang, last week, with the reported loss of
at least three lives.
Aerial
bombings by government Antonov aircraft in Aweil East last week have been
confirmed by other humanitarian sources.
An
end to military attacks on civilians (bombing, artillery attacks, helicopter
gunship attacks and so on) was one of four "specific, action-oriented and
verifiable" proposals that US Special Envoy for Peace John Danforth made
to the warring parties in Sudan earlier this month.
At
a State Department briefing in Washington DC, USA, on Wednesday (28 November),
Danforth said the question of monitoring the bombing - or cessation of
bombing - of civilians would be complex. Monitoring and verification mechanisms
for all four US proposals would be worked out when an American visited
Sudan from next week to follow up on technical issues related to the four
proposals, he said.
"If
you're creating an atmosphere where the world is going to be watching and
there are going to be ways of receiving reports of bad actions, and teams
going in to review whether they happened or not, it would seem to me that
[monitoring] would not be unmanageable," Danforth added.
On
the bombing, Danforth said, the SPLA was not believed to have airplanes
from which to drop bombs so that the proposal to cease such activities
"would be aimed at whoever has the planes."
However,
the four proposals were not intended to be "weighted" against either the
government or SPLA but merely to address a situation where fighting involving
both had as its victims innocent civilians.
"These
four ideas are all geared to protecting non-combatants, so anyone who is
hurting them is being asked to stop," he added.
Danforth
refused to draw any moral equivalence, or difference, between the government
and SPLM/A but said the moral message behind his mission was very simple:
"End the suffering, end the killing, end the bombing, end the slave-taking,
end the fighting - and hopefully build towards some kind of resolution."
(IRIN,
Nairobi, 28-11-2001)
Basic
issues of food security, health and nutrition, and protection will remain
prominent among the humanitarian concerns in Sudan through 2002, according
to the US $194.5 million Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal published by
the United Nations on Monday, 26 November.
The
appeal for Sudan formed part of a larger request by UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan for $2.5 billion for 33 million people "in desperate need" around
the world.
The
food security situation was particularly fragile in drought- and war-affected
areas of Sudan, such that emergency situations could lead to a dramatic
rise in malnutrition, according to the appeal document. The persistence
of malnutrition among the very young and the elderly was also "of particular
concern," it said.
Armed
conflict in Sudan (between the government and Sudan People's Liberation
Movement/Army, and other allied and non-allied militias) continued to threaten
livelihoods, displace civilians, destroy infrastructure, obliterate assets
and disrupt food production, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) reported in presenting the appeal.
Quality
of life indicators continue to be discouraging, particularly in rural areas,
it said, and conditions were particularly bad for those people affected
by war in Unity (Wahdah) State and western Upper Nile region, the Nuba
[Nubah] Mountains, northern and western Bahr al-Ghazal, and Eastern Equatoria.
The
appeal for 2002 is intended to provide a framework for continuing assistance
in the context of the protracted emergency, as well as for more acute emergencies
arising from specific outbreaks of armed conflict, droughts, floods and
other natural disasters.
It
is structured around three themes: emergency preparedness and emergency
response for acute emergencies; meeting the needs of displaced civilians
and host populations; and facilitating peace-building and the promotion
of human rights.
Within
those, the appeal is targeted at 39 projects in 11 areas, including: food
($93.1 million); agriculture and food security ($14.5 million); health
and nutrition ($28.9 million); shelter and relief ($2.5 million); water
and sanitation ($5.5 million); education ($4.9 million); protection, human
rights and the rule of law ($16.9 million); coordination and support ($6.6
million); security ($3.8 million); mine action ($1.0 million); and multi-sectoral
programmes ($16.6 million).
Some
$251.9 million was requested for this year under the 2001 Consolidated
Appeal (and revisions), which was 61 percent funded as of late October.
This does not appear to augur well for a $194.5 million appeal for January-December
2002.
While
food relief needs attracted a relatively healthy 77 percent funding (to
the end of October) in this year's appeal, non-food aid projects received
only 33 percent of funds requested, according to OCHA.
Such
fundamental areas of activity as improving household food security, nutrition,
water and sanitation, education, and human rights and peacebuilding, suffered
a severe lack of funding, which hindered efforts to move vulnerable people
towards a cycle of recovery and rehabilitation, it said.
Some
agencies received scant funding for even modest interventions, such as
reconciliation between pastoralists and farmers, resettlement and rehabilitation
of displaced people, disease outbreaks and reproductive health - with the
result that some activities were curtailed and others virtually non-existent,
OCHA stated.
In
addition, critical security, support and coordination efforts were underfunded,
sometimes with direct consequences on operational programmes, it added.
The
continuing imbalance between funding of the food and non-food sectors was
identified by OCHA as "a fundamental constraint" to a balanced humanitarian
programme. Despite this, food aid remains an important intervention and
is budgeted for 47.9 percent of the total $194.5 million appeal for January
to December 2002.
OCHA
also expressed concern about limited humanitarian access, especially in
the Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile; slow progress in getting the
warring parties to implement agreements on cross-line humanitarian assistance
by road, rail or river; and that the current one-year planning and funding
cycle constrained agencies' ability to help communities move towards recovery.
The
humanitarian assistance operation cannot and should not be expected to
operate in the absence of political action to achieve a negotiated and
lasting peace settlement, the UN emphasised in the appeal document. Implementation
of the planned assistance programme for 2002 would also depend on the full
cooperation of the government of Sudan and southern opposition groups,
it said.
"Humanitarian
work must extend beyond life-saving activities to encourage and promote
reliance and recovery," it added.
(IRIN,
Nairobi, 27-11-2001)
A
Kenyan aid worker taken captive by government-aligned militia in northern
Bahr al-Ghazal, southern Sudan, and later deported by the Sudanese government
for having entered the country illegally, has said she hopes to return
to relief work in southern Sudan but would like to see agreement between
the warring parties on the status of relief workers.
Juliana
Muiruri, a nutritionist with Church Ecumenical Action for Sudan (CEAS),
was seized near Nyamlell, Bahr al-Ghazal, after a raid by pro-government
militia forces, the Sudanese Catholic Information Office (SCIO) and rebel
Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) reported after the event.
CEAS
also reported one Sudanese worker missing (not the two previously reported
by SCIO and SPLM/A) after militia raids around Aweil and Nyamlell in early
November, which coincided with the presence in the area of the government's
military train used to resupply and reinforce garrison towns, including
Aweil, humanitarian sources told IRIN on Tuesday.
In
follow-up contacts with the authorities in Khartoum, there was no word
of what may have happened to that man, and all departments of government
denied any knowledge of his whereabouts, the sources added.
After
her abduction, Muiruri was taken northwards on the military train, heading
from Wau to Khartoum, and was transferred hurriedly to the capital city
before being released to the Kenyan embassy in Khartoum on 18 November.
She returned to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on a Kenya Airways scheduled
flight on 21 November.
The
Khartoum government said Muiruri had been in Sudan illegally, since it
had never issued her with visa or work documents. Most relief organisations
working in SPLM-held areas of southern Sudan operate with documents issued
by the rebel movement, which are not recognised by the government.
CEAS,
which works outside the United Nations-led coordination umbrella Operation
Lifeline Sudan (OLS), does food aid distributions, nutritional interventions
and other humanitarian work in and around Aweil in close collaboration
with the Catholic Diocese of Rumbek.
The
Catholic bishop of Rumbek, Caesar Mazzolari, had appealed to the Sudanese
government to ensure the release of Muiruri, saying that she was "working
in a war zone with the sole intent of assisting the tired civilian population"
and that her liberation would be "an act of justice that the government...
must carry out if it wants to demonstrate to the world that human rights
are respected in Sudan."
In
recent months, Khartoum has been trying to ensure that the United Nations
and international aid agencies apply to it for visas for staff working
anywhere in Sudan, and negotiations are ongoing.
Speaking
after her release, Muiruri thanked the Kenyan government for negotiating
her release and ensuring her safe return to Kenya. She also said she hoped
that Khartoum and the SPLM/A would come to an agreement on the status of
relief workers in southern Sudan, according to the SCIO.
"I
would wish to go there with proper papers so that I can work with all the
confidence I need," it quoted her as saying.
Muiruri
said the experience of being taken captive had helped enlighten her to
the intricacies of the Sudanese conflict and the need for greater effort
to facilitate the country's return to normality, the report stated.
The
Khartoum authorities had treated her well for her entire period in captivity,
and she was "neither hit nor insulted" by her abductors during the period
she was held, Muiruri added.
(IRIN,
Nairobi, 27-11-2001)
UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed today for US $2.5 billion to help
33 million victims of conflict and natural disasters in desperate need
of humanitarian assistance and protection.
"Today,
the world's eyes are on Afghanistan and the plight of its long-suffering
people," Annan told donors gathered at UN headquarters in New York for
the launch of the 2002 Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeals. ".but there are
seventeen complex humanitarian crises identified in these appeals, and
I urge you to forget none of them."
"In
Angola, Somalia and Sudan, long-running civil wars continue to threaten
already fragile livelihoods," Annan said. "Although the past year has brought
new hope for the future in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo
and Sierra Leone, massive humanitarian assistance remains urgently needed,"
he added.
The
theme of the 2002 Consolidated Appeals is "Reaching the vulnerable," highlighting
the need for access to civilians trapped by armed conflict, and for improved
security for relief personnel.
In
a statement delivered at the launch Ambassador Patricia Durrant of Jamaica,
the current President of the Security Council, said that the Council had
spent many hours discussing the vulnerability of civilians in today's wars
but stressed that there was a need to translate "good words into good deeds."
"Governments
should live up to their commitments, armed groups should respect the recognised
rules of international humanitarian law, the private sector should be conscious
of its impact in crisis areas," Durrant said, the first time that a Security
Council President had attended the launch of the UN's humanitarian appeals.
"Jointly, we must ensure that our efforts bring relief and protection to
the many millions suffering from war and natural disasters."
Annan
said that humanitarian assistance is impartial and seeks only to help people
in need. "Attacks against convoys and humanitarian workers must stop. Member
States and warring parties must be held accountable when relief workers
are killed."
Annan
noted that the Consolidated Appeals Process served to improve the quality
and accountability of humanitarian programmes to reach people in the greatest
need. By coordinating their efforts through the Appeals, UN agencies and
other partners ensured that food was not provided without safe water to
prepare it, and that other necessities for survival, including vaccinations
against killer diseases, were not forgotten. It also helped to ensure that
"meeting urgent needs today does not compromise the capacity of a community
to help itself when the immediate crisis has passed."
"No
matter how good our strategy, or how well we prioritise, the United Nations
and its partners cannot fulfil their commitments to millions of people
in need of humanitarian assistance without the financial and political
support of the Member States," Annan told donors, noting that the 2001
appeal was met with only 50 per cent of the required amount. "We must do
better next year, and I repeat my appeal that we should forget no one who
depends on us for help and for hope."
(IRIN,
Nairobi, 26-11-2001)
The
nongovernmental organisation Christian Solidarity International (CSI),
with which the government of Sudan has a history of antipathy, on Saturday
criticised it for allegedly bombarding two villages in Aweil East, Northern
Bahr al-Ghazal last week.
Three
people died in Kuei Wiir as a high-altitude Antonov aircraft dropped seven
bombs on it, according to Civil Commissioner of Aweil East, Victor Akok,
cited by CSI. There were no details of casualties from the village of Pariang,
which was also bombed, it added, referring to the alleged incidents as
part of Khartoum's "jihad [holy war] terrorism" in southern Sudan.
Government-aligned
militia had also killed five people, captured 30 and stolen about 8,000
cows during a raid on Sunday 11 November on Malek Alel, some 38 km south
of Aweil town, according to the agency. The people abducted (including
10 women and 20 children) were believed to be in Aweil town, a government
garrison, it said.
Aweil-based
militias reportedly killed 111 people and enslaved 198 in attacks on 18
villages in the Aweil area between 23 October and 2 November, at a time
when the government's Khartoum-Wau military train was in the area to strengthen
and supply the garrison, according to CSI.
The
organisation alleged on Saturday that "acts of terror against civilians
in southern Sudan have increased markedly since the decision of the UN
Security Council on 28 September to lift sanctions imposed on Sudan in
1995."
It
said there was an urgent need to act on UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights Mary Robinson's call last year for the disarmament of militias who
abducted people for enslavement in Sudan, and said it would be encouraging
US envoy John (Jack) Danforth, appointed in September, to hold it as a
high priority.
The
rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) had on Friday condemned
the Sudanese government for allegedly bombing civilians at Malwal Kon,
a major relief centre, in Northern Bahr al-Ghazal and a camp for internally-displaced
people (IDPs) at Pariang in western Upper Nile last week.
SPLM/A
spokesman Samson Kwaje said the government had not halted its aerial bombardment
of civilian populations in the south, as Danforth had requested during
his recent visit to Sudan.
The
adviser to the Sudanese president on peace affairs, Ghazi Salah al-Din
al-Atabani, on Sunday denied the SPLM/A allegation that the government
was bombing civilians. "This is an incorrect report, and is a ploy by the
rebel movement to undermine the peace process," AFP quoted him as saying.
In
a press statement on Friday, Kwaje also reiterated the movement's claim
that government forces had raided Kumo village, 10 km from Kauda (Kawdah),
in the Nuba (Nubah) Mountains, Southern Kordofan, killing a prominent judge,
Augustino al-Nur Shimela, among other civilians.
This
was a direct violation of its commitment to a period of tranquility to
allow humanitarian assistance in the area, he added.
The
government and SPLM/A confirmed early this month that they had agreed to
a four-week period of uninterrupted tranquility in the Nuba Mountains to
allow the delivery of humanitarian assistance - particularly for an immunisation
campaign and food intervention but also to allow the delivery of medicines
and other non-food items.
Though
it is intended to deliver 2,000 mt of food to the Nuba Mountains in over
200 airdrops between 14 November and mid-December, diplomatic sources have
emphasised that the operation was not being seen as a one-off but as a
lever with which to try and broaden humanitarian access generally in Sudan.
Danforth
elaborated on this on 17 November when he presented four "specific, action-oriented
and verifiable" proposals in an effort to secure tangible gains for the
civilian population, while building trust and confidence between the government
and SPLM/A. These included:
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Access to the Nuba Mountains, not just for four weeks but for the indefinite
future, and a cessation of hostilities in the Nuba to make available food
and medicine;
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A cessation of bombing, artillery attacks and so on - helicopter gunship
attacks - on i |