The United Nations Security Council has extended its peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s western Darfur region for another year [until July 31, 2011].
The 15-nation council agreed unanimously on Friday to the mission’s extension, telling Unamid, the joint African Union/UN peacekeeping force, to focus primarily on protecting civilians and aid deliveries.
It also condemned a recent surge of violence in Darfur and called on the Sudanese government to stop hindering the work of Unamid.
By Sandy Williams Thursday, July 29, 2010
Bettina Peter, CNN, edition.cnn.com
United Nations (CNN)—The security situation in war-ravaged Darfur shows no sign of improvement as fighting has intensified between rebel groups and the Sudanese government, the United Nations Security Council was told Tuesday.
“We are alarmed,” U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said after hearing the report. “This deteriorating security situation is unacceptable and it needs to be effectively addressed.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed out in his latest report that incidents of violence over recent months have surpassed bloodshed in the same time period last year by far.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir returned to Sudan on Friday after defying an International Criminal Court indictment for genocide by visiting Chad, a party to the International Criminal Court and so in theory obliged to arrest him. But Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, welcomed Mr. Bashir instead, exposing the court’s key weakness: It lacks a mechanism to arrest war crimes suspects. The African Union
has told member states not to cooperate with the court, accusing it of singling out the continent for human rights violations.
Leaders in Ardamata IDP camp, near El Geneina, West Darfur, have approached UNAMID with reports that a number of residents who left the camps to cultivate crops on their lands were harassed by armed men.
IDPs claimed that they were physically assaulted in four locations less than 10 kilometers outside El Geneina. The armed men reportedly destroyed the seedlings and replanted the farmlands, having claimed them as their own.
With the beginning of the rainy season this month, IDPs all over Darfur have received seeds and farm tools and many felt safe enough to leave the camps regularly to farm their lands. UNAMID brought the matter to the attention of local authorities and will meet with them about helping to prevent similar incidents in the future in order to encourage IDPs to voluntarily return to their regions.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed concern about the humanitarian conditions in the areas Jebel Marra, Jebel Moon and Jebel Si, as a result of clashes between government forces and the Justice and Equality Movement in recent months. The fighting has led to further displacement of the population of Darfur. The ICRC pointed out that it has not delivered any aid there and has difficulty accessing these areas following renewed fighting late last February, and insecurity resulting from the spread of banditry and crime.
GENEVA (Reuters) – Rebels in Sudan’s Darfur region and the United Nations will sign a deal this week to protect children, an independent mediation group said on Monday, in a move that appears aimed at stopping the use of child soldiers.
The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue said Darfur’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF would sign the agreement in Geneva on Wednesday.
| News Africa | |||
Nearly 400 people have been killed in recent clashes between the Sudanese army and Darfur’s main rebel group, according to Sudanese state media. Most of the people killed – more than 300 – were members of the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem). Eighty-six soldiers were also reportedly killed in the fighting earlier this week. |
(AFP) – Jul 9, 2010
WASHINGTON — The United States, Britain and Norway said Friday they were “deeply concerned” by Sudan’s curtailment of human rights since April elections and voiced alarm about a deterioration in Darfur.
The three powers issued a joint statement as Sudan enters the final year of a 2005 peace deal that halted a 22-year north-south civil war, saying that a “tremendous amount of work” was needed to ensure stability moving forward.
July 15, 2010
Megan Flemming is a policy analyst at the Save Darfur Coalition.
On Monday, the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber judges issued a second arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, this time for three counts of genocide. Darfur activist groups here in the U.S. welcomed the news while calling on world leaders to prevent the type of retaliation against the people of Darfur that Bashir masterminded after the first arrest warrant in March 2009. As the world responds to the ICC’s milestone decision, it’s worth highlighting why this case and the overall push for justice for Darfur is so essential and urgent: without accountability, a negotiated peace will be little more than a long-term ceasefire.
