Sudan ejects Libyan consulate in Darfur as diplomatic ties plummet
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April 3, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan on Tuesday ordered the Libyan
consulate in the western region of Darfur to vacate its offices and
leave the country within 48 hours as diplomatic ties frayed following
Tripoli’s expulsion of Sudanese diplomats from Libya’s southeastern
town of Al-Kufrah earlier this week.
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Tens of thousands of guest workers including men, women and children
from Egypt, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Sudan and other countries continue to
flee the unrest in Libya (Getty Images)
Tension between the two neighbors started on Sunday after Libyan
authorities ordered the Sudanese consulate in Al-Kufrah, which remains
under the control of the country’s beleaguered leader Muammar
Al-Qaddafi as he fights against eastern rebels, to closes its office
and leave the country.
The 12-member staff of the consulate left Libya within 48 hours as
ordered by Al-Kufrah’s military ruler and arrived on Monday in Sudan’s
northern town of Dongola.
On the same day, Sudan summoned the Libyan ambassador in Khartoum and
requested clarifications on the expulsion of the consulate which has
been used extensively as a point of evacuation for Sudanese citizens
fleeing the unrest in Libya.
The spokesman of Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Khalid Musa,
told reporters in Khartoum on Tuesday that the Libyan consulate in
Al-Fashir town, the provincial capital of North Darfur State, had been
availed 48 hours to close its office and leave the country.
Musa went on to explain that the expulsion comes against the
background of Libya’s expulsion of the Sudanese consulate in
Al-Kufrah.
The spokesman said that his country’s decision would not cast
diplomatic or political shadows on bilateral relations, and that it
was made in accordance with the principle of “equivalent retaliation.”
According to Musa, the situation of the Sudanese embassy in the Libyan
capital of Tripoli remains “stable”
Western embassies and UN offices in Tripoli were vandalized on Sunday
after NATO warplanes bombed Al-Qaddafi’s family compound and
reportedly killed the leader’s second-youngest son and three
grandchildren.
British and Italian embassies were burned by angry mobs, prompting the
former to expel the Libyan ambassador in London.
In a related development, Sudan also closed its shared borders with
Libya and deployed large numbers of police and security forces as well
as army units in the three states of its western region of Darfur.
Sudan’s interior minister Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid on Monday said that his
country deployed forces along the border strip with Libya in order
prevent smuggling of arms into the war-battered region of Darfur which
borders Libya.
Darfur region has been steeped in a civil conflict which erupted in
2003 as rebels belonging mostly to African ethnicities took up arms
against the Sudanese government. According to UN estimates, the Darfur
conflict left as many as 300,000 dead, mainly due to starvation and
diseases, as well as 2.7 million displaced.
Sudan closed its shared borders with Libya in early July 2010 after
Libya provided sanctuary to Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the Darfur
rebel group justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
The borders were re-opened in February this year as Sudan attempted to
evacuate thousands of its citizens fleeing the war in Libya.
(ST)
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