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UN Pulls Staff From Darfur Town    [

    UN Chief: Darfur Is in Free Fall
    By Edith M. Lederer
    The Associated Press

    Wednesday 06 December 2006

    The conflict in Darfur has spread to two neighboring countries and is now in "free fall" with six million people facing the prospect of going without food or protection, the outgoing U.N. humanitarian chief said Tuesday.

    Jan Egeland, who steps down on Dec. 12, told The Associated Press in an interview that one of the most difficult problems he has faced was convincing countries of the dire situation in the western region of Sudan.

    "I think some of the Arab countries and Asian countries have not really understood we're in a free fall. It's not a steady deterioration. It's a free fall and it includes Darfur, eastern Chad, northern Central African Republic," he said.

    Egeland blamed the Sudanese government, parts of the rebel movement, ethnic leaders in Darfur, and the government of Chad for fueling the war, which began in 2003 when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the Arab-led central government. Khartoum is accused of retaliating by unleashing the janjaweed militias of Arab nomads, who are accused of the worst atrocities.

    More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in the fighting, and the violence has only increased since the government and one rebel group signed a peace agreement in May.

    The U.N. is evacuating its international staff and the assets it can at the moment because of the intensifying violence and insecurity, "but we're not protecting the lives of the vulnerable women and children, and there are four times more of them now than when we started in 2004," he said.

    Egeland, who was the first to call Darfur the world's worst humanitarian emergency in November 2003, said that one of his greatest regrets is that key global leaders did not come together and offer the sticks and carrots to settle the conflict in 2004 when it only involved one million people.

    "In the end, we only acted through the humanitarian way," Egeland said. "We have kept people alive, but we haven't protected them, and as I'm going out, I regret to say we're in a free fall again."

    Where is the free fall going?

    "We would get a genocide. We would get a Rwanda. We could get a terrible situation if the four million people who are in need of humanitarian assistance in Darfur (are) joined by a million people in Chad and another million in northern Central African Republic. That's six million people in a totally hopeless situation."

    Egeland recalled that the women and children he met during his recent fourth visit to Darfur thanked him for the food but pleaded for security. With the humanitarian operation collapsing in many places, he said, they will have nothing.

    In a farewell speech on Monday to the U.N. Security Council, Egeland accused world leaders of failing to live up to a pledge made at a U.N. summit in September 2005 to protect civilians caught in armed conflict from genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. A Security Council resolution adopted in April reaffirmed their agreement.

    Egeland said he does not want a world police force led by one of the big powers to go into countries at gunpoint and try to protect civilians, because that could lead to an even worse situation.

    "But what I do expect is that China, the United States, Russia, the European Union ó the leaders come together and say we're going to push and pull and provide sticks and carrots until it changes," he said.

    "If we had had that for Darfur, from China to the United States and everything in between, we would have had a different situation," Egeland said. "But there was never this kind of a coherent situation."

    Nonetheless, he said, things are starting to change.

    China, which has close economic ties to Sudan, is now "actively engaged" but there are also many more armed groups bent on revenge killings, he said.

    The Security Council adopted a resolution pushed by Britain and the United States to transfer peacekeeping in Darfur from an ill-equipped 7,000-member African Union force to a larger, better equipped U.N. force. But the Sudanese government rejected a U.N. force, claiming it would violate the country's sovereignty and was an attempt at recolonization.

    He supported the resolution but said it did not get implemented, partly because it lacked support from African, Arab and Islamic countries for a U.N. force.

    In late November, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Sudan had agreed in principle to a compromise "hybrid mission" from the African Union and the U.N. ó but Khartoum wanted to discuss the size, the force commander and the head of the overall mission.

    "At the moment I think it's more than sad to see that grown men with jackets and ties like me sit and quarrel of what is a 'hybrid force' ... while women and children are dying," Egeland said.

    "I'm happy to note that in nine months we might have this force, but what about the next nine days where it could collapse completely?"

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    UN Pulls Staff From Darfur Town
    BBC news

    Wednesday 06 December 2006

    The United Nations has withdrawn its non-essential workers from El Fasher, capital of Sudan's North Darfur state.

    The UN said the move is temporary until the risk of fighting between Arab Janjaweed militia and rebels subsides.

    The African Union has warned that El Fasher is at risk of being attacked by a coalition of Darfuri rebel groups.

    At least 200,000 people are estimated to have died and more than two million driven from their homes since the conflict began in 2003.

    "The schools have shut down and all the markets are closed," a resident told Reuters news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity. "People are worried."

    Clashes Reported

    The aid workers were relocated "as a result of increased Janjaweed presence in the town and armed movements in the area", said Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the UN mission in Sudan.

    Janjaweed militia and rebel fighters clashed in the town's market on Monday, leaving two SLM rebels dead, the Associated Press news agency said.

    More than 300 humanitarian workers are based in the town, which is one of two key centres for Darfur's huge aid operation.

    Late on Tuesday night a UN plane flew 134 of them out.

    Hundreds of thousands of people live in the town or in the camps that surround it, says the BBC's correspondent in Khartoum, Jonah Fisher.

    Its airport is the key supply route used by Khartoum to arm and equip government forces, says our correspondent.

    An African Union statement said that the town was at risk of being attacked and that its headquarters there was a possible target.

    The Sudanese government is still resisting pressure for the UN to take control of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

    The outgoing UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland, has said that one of his biggest regrets was that more was not done for Darfur in the early stages of the crisis.

    "We're saving really the assets that we can at the moment, protecting the life of our own people," he said of the UN pullout from El Fasher.

    "But we're not protecting the lives of the vulnerable women and children and there are four times more of them now than when we started in 2004."