Humanitarian Conditions in Darfur: The most recent reports reveal a
relentless deterioration
By Eric Reeves,
10 February 2013
Context
Violence continues to rage throughout Darfur, indeed has dramatically
accelerated in recent weeks. This has created an insecurity that
endangers not only millions of civilians—within and outside the camps
for displaced persons—but humanitarian personnel. Most transportation
corridors are unsafe without the heaviest of escorts. Whole sections
of Darfur—e.g., Jebel Marra—remain subject to Khartoum’s humanitarian
embargo. The National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime
relentlessly obstructs not only humanitarian personnel and operations
but any meaningful investigations of atrocity crimes attempted by the
UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Dismayingly, humanitarian
assistance now faces another disturbing obstacle. The US Agency for
International Development (USAID) warned on January 25, 2013:
"The moratorium on restrictions on humanitarian aid in Darfur is
expected to expire on January 31, potentially complicating the
delivery of emergency assistance and implementation of early recovery
programs in Darfur. Renewed annually by HAC since 2007, the moratorium
expedites bureaucratic approvals that allow international
organizations to conduct humanitarian assistance activities in Darfur,
including processing of travel permits and visas for international
staff." (USAID Fact Sheet #2, FY 2013, January 25, 2013)
The moratorium has in fact expired according to several sources within
the humanitarian community. This is most likely to affect
international nongovernmental humanitarian organizations registered
only in Darfur (as opposed to Sudan generally). But a number of these
organizations are key implementing partners for both the UN’s World
Food Program and USAID. It is once again "open season" for Khartoum in
the harassment, abuse, obstruction, and denial of access to those
working to provide food, primary health care, shelter, and clean water
to desperate civilians.
[ In early February 2013 NIF/NCP President Omar al-Bashir pardoned
Mubarak Mustafa, a man convicted of assisting in the escape of four
men who in 2008 brutally murdered USAID official John Granville and
his driver, Abdurrahman Abbas Rahma. The message to the U.S. in
al-Bashir’s pardon was clear, as was the regime’s complicity in the
escape of the assassins. ]
International response to Khartoum’s most recent decisions is unclear
and indecisive. But unless the moratorium is renewed—at least
nominally securing what are in fact standard humanitarian operating
conditions in virtually all countries—we may be sure that people will
suffer and die as a consequence.
For its part, the U.S. issued yet another perfunctory statement,
"calling on the Sudanese government to grant UN agencies unrestricted
access to all areas of Darfur [in order to meet humanitarian needs,
State Department spokeswoman Victoria] Nuland said" (Statement of
February 8, 2013, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC). Nuland
also urged Khartoum "to cease aerial bombardments," an urging that
will have as little impact on the regime’s thinking as the many
previous such perfunctory statements. Indeed, as with all such
"urgings," there is no evidence that Khartoum hears or cares about
U.S. statements, since they have never amounted to more than posturing
when it comes to Darfur. The fact that all military flights in Darfur
have been banned by the UN Security Council (Resolution 1591, March
2005) is equally inconsequential. Unless there are clear and credible
consequences to continued indiscriminate aerial attacks on civilians,
they will continue—as they have for more than 20 years (see
www.sudanbombing.org).
Already we have seen signs of what is to come with international
failure to secure renewal of the moratorium on restrictions of
humanitarian assistance:
"As of 1 January 2013, the government of Sudan halted the work of 50
percent of the NGOs working in El-Geneina camps, West Darfur’s
capital, several sources told Radio Dabanga on Wednesday. Five out of
the 10 foreign organizations were informed by the government in
mid-2012 that they could no longer exercise their activities at the
camps [beyond the end of the year], sheikhs from 10 different sites
affirmed. They emphasized the organizations were not expelled from
Sudan. Instead, [the sheikhs] continued, organizations were ordered to
stay in El-Geneina, hand over their resources to camps’ residents and
focus their programs on voluntary return villages.
The emphasis on returns by Khartoum has a grim but simple logic: if
there are no longer displaced persons in the camps, the rationale for
an international humanitarian presence disappears. Moreover, the
regime has not hesitated to restrict, re-direct, or expel
organizations that don’t follow this re-fashioned mandate, even
organizations such as these:
The Swiss Human Being’s Earth, the French Triangle, the International
Medical Corp, and the Canadian War Child are the organizations ordered
to alter their programs. While working at displaced camps, these NGOs
offered services such as health, education, medicine, distribution of
non-food items, kindergartens, water services and livelihood
programs."
Again, Khartoum has re-defined these critical humanitarian tasks,
"ordering [these organizations] to stay in El-Geneina, hand over their
resources to camps’ residents and focus their programs on voluntary
return villages." ("Sudan government halts work of 50 percent NGOs in
West Darfur capital," Radio Dabanga, el-Geneina, 23 January 2013) (all
emphases in all quotes have been supplied—ER)
Compounding the challenges facing humanitarian efforts in Darfur, the
Jebel Amir area of North Darfur has recently seen extremely intense
clashes between two Arab groups: the Beni Hussein (who for the most
part have sought to stay out of the Darfur conflict and Khartoum’s
genocidal assault on non-Arab populations) and the Northern Rizeigat,
particularly the Um Julal subsection from which a great many Janjaweed
were drawn, including the most notorious of Janjaweed leaders, Musa
Hilal. The fighting has been over the newly significant gold mines
that lie in Beni Hussein land, but which—according to one Darfur
expert who has recently been on the ground in Darfur—
"…Hilal’s ’Border Guards’ consider it their own. It’s not unsimilar to
the latest Hashaba incidents—according to local sources, the Um Jalul
Border Guards killed 80 civilians there, but most [of them] were not
from the area but gold searchers from other parts of Sudan." (email
received February 4, 2013)
[For a detailed account of the Hashaba fighting, see:
www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3525 ]
With the Sudanese economy imploding, in large measure for lack of
foreign exchange, the Khartoum regime has given gold mining and gold
sales to the Central Bank of Sudan inordinate importance. This has
skewed attitudes towards land tenure and toward other areas of
potential economic development (e.g., the regime has allowed the
agricultural sector to decline for more than two decades). And it has
created powerful incentives for violent seizure of territory.
According to UNAMID, more than 100 Beni Hussein civilians were killed
in recent fighting near the gold mine region of Jebel Amir, which
began accelerating in early January 2013. Unsurprisingly, humanitarian
sources told Agence France-Presse that the toll was much higher than
that reported by UNAMID (January 31, 2013).
In a compelling and timely report, Amnesty International cites a
source who, while requiring anonymity for safety, said the violence in
Jebel Amir "was the worst example of inter-Arab violence to emerge in
the past two years as government-linked Arab groups got ’out of
control’ and turned on each other." In this connection AFP cites
another humanitarian source who said the Beni Hussein had refused to
pay newly imposed government mining fees that added up to "huge, huge
money." In short, this was another regime-sanctioned extortion racket
in Darfur. Amnesty noted in particular:
"Reports that members of Sudan’s security forces were involved in
January attacks that left up to 200 people dead near a goldmine in
Darfur must urgently be investigated, Amnesty International said
today. Fighting broke out on 5 January between members of Beni
Hussein, an Arab tribe that lives locally and the pastoralist Rizeigat
community, when a Rizeigat leader, who is also an officer in Sudan’s
Border Guard, reportedly laid claim to a gold-rich area in Beni
Hussein territory.
"Gunmen driving government vehicles are alleged to have opened fire on
people in the mostly Beni Hussein area of Kebkabiya using grenades and
heavy machine guns. While many among the local population own
automatic rifles, heavier weaponry of the sort used in these attacks
is not normally available to civilians. These events come as the
government is attempting to exert greater control over licensing and
export of gold, in a context of fiscal crisis, depleted foreign
exchange reserves, and widespread gold smuggling.
"Residents of Kebkabiya identified individual officers of the Border
Intelligence Brigade (BIB, known as ’Border Guards’) as being among
the instigators of the violence. The Border Guards are part of Sudan’s
Military Intelligence. Other villages were also attacked by Rizeigat
tribesmen and Border Guards. One witness told Amnesty International
that 53 residents of his village in Martam Bay were killed in the
early hours of 9 January. He said the attack was carried out by a
group of gunmen in eight vehicles which included Border Guard officers
whom he identified by name." (Amnesty International, January 30, 2013)
Amidst this rising violence, humanitarian conditions in a broader
sense are rapidly deteriorating in ways the UN refuses to clarify or
even speak about. This in turn makes it impossible for international
nongovernmental relief organizations (INGOs) to speak out or
promulgate their own data and findings: for they know that if they get
ahead of the UN in speaking honestly about conditions, they will be
expelled by Khartoum. Difficulties in obtaining visas to Sudan and the
required travel permits for Darfur are particularly daunting at
present—a blunt reminder by Khartoum that it full controls access to
the region.
All this has been confirmed again and again, publicly and privately,
by those working for the UN and for INGOs, and yet the UN leadership
and that of UNAMID refuse to speak fully and honestly about these grim
facts.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, has offered in his most recent
report on Darfur and UNAMID (October 2012) what can only be considered
a pusillanimous and misleadingly limited account of Darfur’s most
conspicuous realities, an account that is likely to contribute to the
loss of a great many civilian lives. This comes after earlier reports
in 2012 by Ban that say absolutely nothing about sexual violence—not
even a mention of what is one of the most pervasive means of an
ongoing "genocide by attrition." Sexual violence receives only
parenthetical mention in the October report and a terse, absurdly
unrepresentative summary:
"UNAMID documented 30 cases of sexual and gender-based violence
involving 42 victims, 13 of whom were minors. This represents a slight
decrease from 33 cases involving 37 victims, including 23 minors, in
the previous reporting period. UNAMID monitored police investigations
into the incidents, and court hearings, and facilitated the provision
of legal aid and psychosocial assistance." (page 11)
This latter claim, about UNAMID monitoring of police investigations
and assisting in other ways, is emphatically and repeatedly denied by
Darfuris. As Radio Dabanga reports from West Darfur (January 22, 2013)
(by "herders" Radio Dabanga means here to refer to nomadic Arab
groups, often heavily armed and part of the pro-regime militias):
"West Darfur, five herders armed by the government raped two displaced
women at the Misa area. Misa is located about four kilometers south of
camp Mornei for displaced, a sheikh told Radio Dabanga. He said the
men abducted the women at gunpoint from Misa, as they were collecting
firewood at about 10:00am on Monday. According to the sheikh, the
gunmen took turns when raping the victims, who were not released until
late that night…. The sheikh said this is the second rape case in
about three weeks, adding that all of these assaults in the area are
carried out by the same group of herders. The police have been
informed about it, he pointed out. Citizens have decided to no longer
go to UNAMID when crimes occur, as the mission always tells them to
first go to the police, the sheikh stressed. He complained about the
lack of cooperation of UNAMID."
The blunt reality is that Darfuri women simply have no access to a
justice system in cases of rape, so it is quite unclear what "legal
aid" UNAMID might be providing, as the UN Secretary-General claims.
Clearly the impression UNAMID is making on the people in the Misa area
of West Darfur is one of callous indifference.
UN silence, misrepresentation, and inaction come even as the avalanche
of rape continues to roll through Darfur, threatening girls and women
everywhere (see http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=2884 ). It would seem
incumbent upon the Secretary-General to provide a fuller account of
sexual violence and its nature in Darfur; in particular, he should
identify those most responsible, as well as the racial animus that
works to define nearly all instances of rape, especially in light of
incidents such as these:
"Different pro-government militias raped two young girls, aged
thirteen and nine, in two different incidents in North and West Darfur
last week. The first occurrence took place at camp El-Amiya Sharq, in
Kabkabiya city, North Darfur last Thursday evening, 31 January. An
eyewitness told Radio Dabanga. The victim, a 13-year-old girl who is
mentally disabled, was snatched her from her mother’s arms after three
gunmen invaded their home, sources recounted. Bystanders found the
girl on Friday lying on the ground out in the open bleeding and in
critical condition. She was taken to a UNAMID hospital and the mission
later transferred her to Kabkabiya for treatment. Witnesses informed
UNAMID and the police about the incident."
"Separately, two pro-government militiamen raped a nine year-old girl
from Alban Jadid in Sirba locality, West Darfur on Saturday at 9:00am.
A relative of the girl told Radio Dabanga the victim and a friend of
about the same age were collecting firewood in the outskirts of Alban
Jadid when the alleged perpetrators, riding camels, attacked them.
They took both girls to a nearby forest, although one of them managed
to escape, a source said. The other was raped in turns and was not
released until after the afternoon prayers. According to sources, the
girl is being treated according to traditional methods in Alban Jadid
and her condition is ’very bad.’" (Radio Dabanga, February 3, 2013)
At the same time, large-scale violence against those within the camps
is continuous, despite the numerous "patrols" that UNAMID boasts of.
Ban Ki-moon again offers a deliberately bland and untenable account of
such attacks:
"Attacks on internally displaced persons have continued, resulting
mostly in violations of the right to physical integrity. UNAMID
recorded 37 incidents involving 100 victims, a decline from the 49
incidents involving 153 victims recorded in the previous reporting
period."
"Thirty-seven incidents involving 100 victims"? Are we really being
asked to take such a preposterous statistical rendering seriously?
Indeed to see it as representing "improvement" over the previous
reporting period? UNAMID knows, Ban Ki-moon knows, and Darfuris
certainly know that this is more than a grotesque understatement: it
is a deliberate misrepresentation, designed at once to mollify
Khartoum and paper over the gross failure of UNAMID in fulfilling its
civilian protection mandate. Such reports are also used to support the
decision made by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations to draw
down the failing UNAMID. Ban mentions this—"reductions to the
mission’s overall troop and police strengths are on track to reach the
authorized ceilings"—but does not begin to have the honesty to confess
that this is not because of improved security but rather because of
the calculation that it no longer makes sense to fund a dysfunctional
UNAMID at present levels, given the need for UN peacekeepers globally.
Very recently Zam Zam camp—less than ten miles south of el-Fasher,
headquarters of UNAMID—was subject to three days of terror, with no
response from the nominal civilian protection force ("Three
consecutive days of attacks at North Darfur displaced camp," Zam Zam
Camp, 7 February 2013):
"Schools, health centers and water stations at Zam Zam [IDP] camp near
El-Fasher, North Darfur, are closed for three days since members of
the Central Reserve Forces launched attacks on the area. Witnesses
speaking to Radio Dabanga said the assaults took place between Tuesday
and Thursday. They added the Abu Tira, as the Central Reserve Forces
is known, looted and destroyed eight shops and fired random shots in
the air in and outside the camp ’terrorizing the displaced….’
Displaced are saying the security situation at the camp is ’alarmingly
deteriorating’ making them unable to leave their homes. They claim
there is almost ’no life’ at the camp at moment and all institutions
have temporarily ceased their functions. Zam Zam’s residents are
urging international organizations to protect them from attacks by Abu
Tira, who are ’terrorizing and intimidating’ everyone."
One would learn little of such violence, violence that is all too
typical, reading UNAMID’s relentlessly upbeat dispatches, or Ban
Ki-moon’s report on UNAMID and Darfur, which itself relies largely on
UNAMID reporting. Together they produce shameful understatements of
violence and Khartoum’s relentless denial and obstruction of
humanitarian relief. Nor would one learn much of significance about
actual humanitarian conditions: there are in Ban Ki-moon’s report no
global data, or indeed data of any sort about: levels of malnutrition
and morbidity, mortality rates, and the adequacy of clean water
supplies and primary medical care.
The UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) is a better
source of news about Darfur, and because it is much less politically
constrained provides more useful information about humanitarian
conditions. Most recently (February 8, 2013) IRIN reported:
"According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), at least 100,000 people have been displaced or
severely affected by the fighting, which left more than 100 dead."
"It is unclear at this stage how long the people displaced from the
Jebel Amir area are likely to remain displaced. The area is still
insecure and over 120 villages have been destroyed," OCHA’s public
information and reports officer in Khartoum, Damian Rance, told IRIN."
"In the locality of El Sireaf [where Jebel Amir is located] education
has also been disrupted as the displaced have taken refuge in schools.
Some of the displaced came to the town with their animals, and there
is concern about insufficient pasture and health risks posed by animal
deaths."
"The Darfur-based Radio Dabanga reported on 6 February that some
16,000 newly displaced people had arrived in the North Darfur towns of
Kabkabiya and Saraf Omra following threats by rival tribal militias.
Many of the displaced are living on the streets with no humanitarian
support."
This is the first time that I have seen Radio Dabanga cited by IRIN,
or indeed any news wire-service, in such fashion. Crediting the
research and interviews from Radio Dabanga is a critical first step in
understanding humanitarian realities in Darfur.
History of Humanitarian Efforts in Darfur
Khartoum’s deeply hostile relationship with international humanitarian
efforts has been well documented since July 2004, when a "Memorandum
of Understanding" was signed in Khartoum by then Secretary-General
Kofi Annan and regime officials. Despite this MOU, violent assault,
abuse, imprisonment, and harassment of relief workers has been
constant; appropriation of humanitarian resources, obstruction, denial
of key resources imported from abroad, and expulsions have also been
consistently and authoritatively reported during the entire period.
(See also overviews from December 2006 and June 2007.)
Expulsions of critical international relief agencies were most
conspicuous in March 2009, when the Khartoum regime expelled thirteen
INGOs, representing roughly half the total humanitarian capacity.
Although new U.S. Secretary of State (then Senator) John Kerry
declared at the time (April 27, 2009) "We have agreement [with
Khartoum] that in the next weeks we will be back to 100 percent
[humanitarian] capacity," this was shamefully disingenuous. Kerry knew
such restoration of capacity was completely impossible, whatever
Khartoum might "agree to"—neither the resources, logistics, nor
critical experience on the ground could possibly have been replaced in
the time-frame Kerry indicated. What his cynical comment did do was
send to Khartoum a signal that they would not be seriously pressed by
the U.S. on the reporting of humanitarian conditions in Darfur, or
even humanitarian access. In an important sense, the refusal to renew
the moratorium is an outgrowth of what Khartoum felt had been signaled
by U.S. and international acquiescence in 2009.
The process of turning Darfur into a "black box" has also continued
relentlessly, abetted by key UN relief officials, but also by UNAMID
leaders, who are certainly aware of how badly their mission of
civilian and humanitarian protection is failing (see
http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=2356 ). The response, however, is not to
confront Khartoum over its relentless obstructionism but to declare a
completely contrived "mission accomplished." And as violence
escalates, particularly in North Darfur but throughout all three
Darfur states, there is no international reporting presence, no human
rights presence, and what UN "assessment missions" are permitted into
Darfur are choreographed in detail by Military Intelligence. This
ensures that only misleading representations emerge by way of these
official visits, and that the suffering and destruction of Darfuris is
more fully obscured.
*********
My goal here is to provide the very most recent information bearing on
humanitarian conditions coming primarily not from official UN sources
but Darfuris themselves, either via Radio Dabanga, Darfuris in the
diaspora, and sources on the ground. I preserve here and elsewhere the
division of Darfur into three states: West, North, and South. These
are the divisions reflected in the key cartographic resource for
Darfur, the three-part Darfur Field Atlas (March 2006); Khartoum’s
recent creation of a "Central Darfur" and an "East Darfur" has no
basis in history, and is little more than an effort at geographic
obfuscation.
The balance of this analysis has four parts, surveying representative
reports from the past two weeks:
[1] Current medical well-being, including mental health and the
provision of primary health care;
[2] Current standard humanitarian measures of well-being, particularly
morbidity indicators, malnutrition rates, as well as water quality and
availability;
[3] Current measures of well-being, including: freedom from fear of
rape; the ability of families and villages to work their lands; access
to meaningful employment; availability of needed humanitarian
assistance;
[4] Current figures for civilian "returns" and ongoing displacement,
as well as the number of civilians classified as displaced.
History of Humanitarian Assistance Following March 2009 Expulsions
It is important to note first that any account of the humanitarian
situation in Darfur will be defined much more by what we don’t know
statistically than by what we do; but the evidence is sufficiently
extensive and disturbing that we must do our best to infer what may be
gathered from a wealth of detailed anecdotal reporting.
The drop-off was precipitous in UN reporting on this vast, continuing
humanitarian crisis. We see the decline most clearly seen in the
failure of OCHA to secure permission to continue publishing its
quarterly, highly detailed, statistically rich "Darfur Humanitarian
Profiles." The last, No. 34, was published for January 1, 2009; two
months later Khartoum expelled thirteen INGOs; in the process the
regime made it perfectly clear to the UN what was expected, indeed
required in the way of accommodation of the regime’s "sensitivities"
in all reporting on Darfur.
Khartoum’s officials have on countless previous occasions prevented
the UN and INGOs from gathering data, collating data, analyzing data,
or promulgating the results of these analyses. Again, the quid pro quo
here—continued humanitarian access to Darfur in return for an end to
full UN and INGO reporting on the consequences of a continuing
"genocide by attrition"—could hardly be clearer, or its moral
implications less demanding of scrutiny. In any event, the amount of
globally useful information and data about malnutrition, morbidity,
and medical care is negligible. That this should be so is in the
interest of only one actor in this brutal drama.
In the absence of the "Darfur Humanitarian Profiles," OCHA now
provides a section on Darfur in its weekly "Humanitarian Bulletin:
Sudan" (typically about four Website pages, with photographs, for all
of Sudan and South Sudan). There are also quarterly reports, but the
most recent is for the third quarter of 2012 (conditions as of
November 1, 2012); the most recent of the "monthly reports" on the
OCHA website is for July 2012. But although there are relatively
precise data for the number of displaced in particular
areas—surprisingly precise, indeed—there are still no detailed
accounts of key humanitarian issues. To be sure, OCHA also publishes
"Humanitarian Bulletin: South Sudan" (also about four Website pages);
and these reports have a considerable amount of data relevant to
understanding the many humanitarian crises presently festering in
South Sudan. But this only makes that much clearer what is missing
from OCHA’s reporting on Darfur in the more encompassing "Humanitarian
Bulletin: Sudan."
In fact, our best global view of the humanitarian crisis came over two
years ago in an unpublished but widely circulated report from Tufts
University ("Navigating Without a Compass: The Erosion of
Humanitarianism in Darfur," a report completed in late 2010 and based
on extensive research, including field research in Darfur). It was
first reported and discussed in an extensive and devastating critique
of the UN humanitarian response by the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting ("UN Accused of Caving in to Khartoum," January 7, 2011). On
the basis of my own reading of the Tufts document, I found a series of
appalling conclusions about humanitarian capacity—most notably:
"International humanitarian capacities have been seriously eroded and
impaired to a point that leaves Darfuris in a more vulnerable position
now than at any other time since the counter-insurgency operations and
forced displacements in 2003."
Again, this analysis represents conditions as of late 2010. Moreover,
the warning of humanitarian erosion and impairment was not limited to
the authors of the Tufts study. Seventeen international human rights
organizations declared, inter alia, in a lengthy statement on January
8, 2011 that:
"There are clear signs that the situation in Darfur is getting worse.
But the international community is failing to monitor and respond
properly to what is happening in Darfur."
The lengthy critique provided by the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting noted:
"UNICEF reported early last year [2010] that as many as 21 nutritional
surveys were conducted since June 2009, but only seven have been
released by the humanitarian affairs commission [HAC]. Six of those
showed [Global Acute] malnutrition rates of between 15 and 29 per
cent, the report stated."
15 percent is the threshold for a "humanitarian emergency." Nothing
has changed to make possible a more encouraging characterization of
conditions in Darfur. On the contrary, two years later violence
continues to intensify and humanitarian conditions deteriorate yet
further. And still the UN refuses to publish or promulgate data
relevant to understanding this deterioration, something highlighted by
IWPR two years ago in a series of interviews with UN officials
speaking confidentially. In one courageous case, the UN official—Nils
Kastberg, head of UNICEF in Sudan—spoke publicly:
"’Nils Kastberg [said in October 2010] that Khartoum is preventing his
agency from releasing reports about malnutrition in IDP camps. ’Part
of the problem has been when we conduct surveys to help us address
issues, in collaboration with the ministry of health, very often other
parts of the government such as the humanitarian affairs commission
[HAC] interferes and delays in the release of reports, making it
difficult for us to respond [in a] timely [manner],’ he said." (IWPR)
In an earlier interview with Radio Dabanga, Kastberg had also declared:
"’Sometimes it is security services that hinder access or delay
access, sometimes it is the humanitarian affairs office [HAC] that
delays the release of nutritional surveys. Sometimes it is delays in
granting permissions and visas. It is different sections of different
[government] institutions which interfere in our work.’"
(http://www.radiodabanga.org/node/4997 )
Here it is important to note the rather different view of the chief UN
aid official for Darfur at the time, Georg Charpentier—Resident and
Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan:
"’UN humanitarian agencies are not confronted by pressure or
interference from the Government of Sudan,’ [Charpentier said in a
written statement to IWPR]."
This is simply despicable mendacity, which in its capitulation to
Khartoum has made it a great deal more difficult for UN and other
humanitarian operations to secure access. This is lying that costs
lives and occasions greater human suffering.
A year earlier—January 2010—I had warned of precisely these
developments: "Civilians at Risk: Human Security and Humanitarian Aid
in Darfur" (January 17, 2010), and have offered substantial follow-on
analyses, building on both the Tufts report and, again, information
provided by Darfuris in the diaspora, Radio Dabanga, and relief
officials on the ground in Darfur (all appeared in the Sudan Tribune,
and are selectively noted, with links, in the Appendix).
What has been reported most recently… (this lengthy analysis continues
at http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3787 )
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