SUDAN: Ireland is to substantially increase its humanitarian funding to Sudan as the crisis intensifies in the Darfur region in the west of Africa's largest country.
After visiting a number of the camps housing people who fled their villages after attacks by Arab militias, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, announced a €3 million increase in emergency funding to NGOs and agencies in the Darfur region, where up to 1.2 million people are living in camps.
Mr Kitt said the extra €3 million funding, bringing the total to €8 million, "almost uses up all resources" in the Department's emergency funding for the year, but Sudan was currently "the world's worst humanitarian disaster" and it was "the right thing to do".
The Minister has also made the "strongest possible representations", through the Irish Embassy to the Sudanese Minister for Foreign Affairs as reports emerged that Sudanese security forces had moved to Mornei, a camp in western Darfur where some 70,000 displaced villagers are staying.
The UN's humanitarian co-ordinator, Mr Erick de Mul, told the Irish delegation at a meeting of reports of an apparent plan by the authorities to move a couple of hundred police in to round up some 10,000 of the 70,000 people in the camp. "In the process these people are being handled like cattle," he said. Aid workers from Concern went to the camp yesterday to carry out an assessment of the situation.
Mr de Mul said it could be the start of "something serious" and ran counter to an agreement by the Sudanese government that there would be no forced returns to villages. Many of the people in camps have refused to return to their homes, terrified they would be attacked again. It is understood the situation remains at a stand-off, with the police still at the camp but nobody had been moved and it was unclear whether this was due to a lot of pressure from international agencies and governments.
Sudan's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, rejected claims that people were being forced to return to their villages. Speaking to The Irish Times in Khartoum, he said that "we are going to send a joint team this week from the UN, from the donors and from the government of Sudan to make sure those who go back to their home have not been forced and those who are going are going voluntarily".
He asked how could he accept there were forced returns if he was inviting donors, embassies and the UN to go with him to check whether people were being forced to return to their villages. Ironically Mornei is the camp the delegation will visit next week. Mr de Mul said: "I am sure that the government will try to stage-manage it."
Rebels have been fighting since February last year against government-backed Arab militias who attacked villages and displaced more than a million people and in some cases helicopters were used in the attacks. But Dr Ismail denied backing the militias and said that there had been no helicopter attacks for the past month. He said that up to January, "we were at war" with the rebels.