SUDAN HIGH-LEVEL HUMANITARIAN MISSION CONTINUES

SUDAN high-level humanitarian MISSION continues

NEW YORK, 29 April (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) –- The high-level humanitarian mission led by World Food Programme Executive Director James Morris continued today, breaking up into two teams in order to cover more of Darfur.

The team led by Mr. Morris went to the town of Korma some 80 kilometres north-west of El Fasher in North Darfur.  Before reaching Korma they stopped in the village of Bandago, where they observed that the village, once home to some 250 families, had been completely burned.  Only 3 elderly men remained in the town.  In Korma itself, the mission found the marketplace had been completely destroyed as the result of a 16 March attack.  The few residents who remain in Korma stated that some 49 persons were killed in that attack.

The team then visited Abu Shouk camp where they spoke with internally displaced persons during a short visit.  They also met with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and are meeting with representatives of the Government of the Sudan’s Humanitarian Affairs Council.  In their meetings with local authorities, the mission is underscoring that, although many internally displaced persons want to go home, there was a need for safety in internally displaced persons’ places of origin and the need to protect civilians.

The second part of the team, headed by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs for the Sudan, Tom Eric Vraalsen, met with the governor of South Darfur on 28 April.  The team discussed critical issues such as protection of the civilian population, access for humanitarian workers, and freedom of movement of internally displaced persons.

Today, Ambassador Vraalsen’s team went to Kass in South Darfur, where they found internally displaced persons staying in “highly unsuitable accommodations”, including public buildings.  Further, there is no non-governmental organization presence to attend to health needs of the displaced and the hospital is in poor condition.  On the way back to Nyala, the mission visited a burnt village along the route.  They are meeting now with various local officials and leaders and the local peace committee.

The United Nations high-level mission visiting the Sudan at the request of the President of the Sudan has travelled to the Darfur region and plans to visit several internally-displaced-person concentrations before 1 May.  The mission hopes to assess the scope of the crisis and the humanitarian response and to advocate for the crucial protection and access issues that underlie the success of the humanitarian operation.

For further information, please call: Stephanie Bunker, OCHANY, tel.: 917 367 5126, mobile: 917 892 1679; or Elizabeth Byrs, OCHA Geneva, tel.: 41 22 917 2653, mobile: 41(0) 79 473 4570.

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