Sudan to let UN access South Kordofan
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August 19, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan has agreed to let six UN agencies
under local supervision to assess humanitarian needs in its
war-stricken state of South Kordofan.
JPEG - 10.3 kb
FILE - A hugh explosion near a United Nations compound in South
Kordofan state, Tuesday, June 14, 2011 (AP)
Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, Sudan’s envoy to the UN, on Friday
announced that its humanitarian commissioner will lead a mission
involving six UN agencies to conduct an assessment of the humanitarian
situation in South Kordofan which has been rattled by fighting between
Sudan’s army and rebels previously aligned with the independent state
of South Sudan since early June.
UN estimates that at least 200,000 people in South Kordofan have been
killed, injured or forced to flee their homes and land since the
fighting erupted.
The mission, which will last for six days in several locations,
includes the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA), the World Food Program, World Health Organization and the UN
Children’s Fund UNICEF, UN spokesman Farhan Haq told Agence France
Presse (AFP).
But a Western diplomat speaking on the condition of anonymity with AFP
is cynical about Khartoum’s move which he called “a smokescreen.”
“Sudan is not giving in any way to pressure from the international
community," he said, adding that "Khartoum is still banning free
access to humanitarian aid. Khartoum is not allowing an independent
inquiry into the accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity
made against its troops."
A UN report last week documented wide-ranging atrocities it alleges
were committed by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its allied
paramilitary forces during South Kordofan’s conflict. The report said
that the actions could amount to war crimes and crimes against
humanity, calling for an independent probe into the situation.
Sudan dismissed the report as bias and vowed not to heed international
concerns over the situation. The country’s senior presidential
assistant Nafi Ali Nafi said that Sudan would not let international
shrieks over the matter to distract it from quelling the rebellion.
Sudan’s UN envoy said the fact that his country agreed to the mission
disproved allegations of abuses contained in the UN report.
"This defeats the allegations in the preliminary report," he said.
"There are no military attacks in Southern Kordofan."
Sudan has recently softened stance on its commitment to fight South
Kordofan’s rebels until they are defeated and expressed readiness to
initiate a dialogue, in a sign that that its army has failed to defeat
the rebels.
The UN Security Council convened a closed-doors session on Friday to
discuss the UN report on South Kordofan as Sudan strongly protested
the move, saying that the report is not predicated on evidences.
China and Russia last week blocked U.S attempts to bring the UNSC to
condemn the Sudanese government’s doing in South Kordofan and its
aerial bombardments but Western nations pledged to press the matter.
(ST)
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