Situation in Sudan’s Darfur deteriorating sharply, says UN refugee agency chief
The situation in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region is once again deteriorating sharply, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said, warning of a possible imminent calamity which might have “a devastating impact” on neighbouring countries and on other parts of Sudan.
The situation in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region is once again deteriorating sharply, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said, warning of a possible imminent calamity which might have “a devastating impact” on neighbouring countries and on other parts of Sudan.
“What we are witnessing on the ground is a very serious degeneration of the situation,” António Guterres told reporters and other guests at an event in London yesterday to mark the international launch of a DVD of the ‘Voices for Darfur’ concert. "It is extremely nasty, with ugly events,” he added.
Security has deteriorated tremendously within the past six weeks, especially in West Darfur, with ambushes, hostage-taking and attacks on villages as well as on the Aro Sharow camp for displaced people that left 34 displaced people and a number of local villagers dead, he said.
Aid workers increasingly are the focus of attacks and humanitarian agencies say this is seriously hampering their capacity to operate on the ground in Darfur, where nearly 180,000 people have been killed 2 million others displaced since fighting erupted between the Government, allied militias and rebels in early 2003.
“You have three different crises at the moment,” Mr. Guterres said. “South Sudan, where peace was established based on the sharing of oil revenues; you have Darfur, and you have eastern Sudan, where the implications are also in relation to the neighbours and the problem between Eritrea and Ethiopia.”
“Darfur … in my opinion is the key for success or failure for Sudan as a whole,” he added. “If there is success in Darfur, it will have a positive impact for coordinating a peace agreement in the south and for allowing peace to develop in the east.”
But the reverse, he warned, would probably produce the opposite result. “If it gets worse in Darfur, it will deteriorate, and even in the south the agreement will be weakened,” he said, referring to the January peace and power-sharing accord that ended two decades of civil war in southern Sudan.
Mr. Guterres expressed deep concern about the possible adverse effect on other countries in the region, especially Chad, which already hosts more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur.