SUDAN:The aid group Doctors Without Borders said yesterday it had pulled staff out of two locations in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, which the United Nations said will leave 65,000 people without medical aid.
The group said in a statement it had been forced to evacuate its staff from the Tawila and Shangil Tobaya areas of North Darfur after a series of violent attacks against them.
The move came a day after the UN Security Council renewed the mandate of the UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. The US abstained from the vote, over a reference to delaying the indictment of Sudan's president for genocide. The resolution was adopted late on Thursday to extend the UN-AU mission, known as Unamid, for 12 months, the UN said in a statement.
"The United States abstained because language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal," to Sudanese president Umar al-Bashir and undermine efforts to bring him to justice, US ambassador Alejandro D Wolff told the 15-member panel after the vote, according to the statement. The war in Darfur, a region in western Sudan almost the size of France, has resulted in the deaths of as many as 300,000 people and forced two million to flee their homes since 2003.
Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the International Criminal Court in The Hague on July 14th to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir over alleged genocide and crimes against humanity in the conflict. The resolution took note of a July 21st African Union communique that said any indictment of the president may jeopardise the Darfur peace process, and asked the Security Council to defer any prosecution for one year, on a renewable basis.
The top UN humanitarian official called on Khartoum to take action to protect humanitarian aid workers in Darfur, where the deteriorating security situation has forced aid agencies to reduce rations for hungry people there.
"The Sudanese government have a responsibility to ensure security throughout their territory," said John Holmes, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs. He said that this year, 180 humanitarian vehicles have been hijacked, 145 aid workers kidnapped and nine killed.
- (Reuters, Bloomberg)