ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN SUDAN AND CHAD, 30 JUNE – 3 JULY

Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Khartoum, Sudan, from Doha, the capital of Qatar, in the morning of Wednesday, 30 June.

He was briefed on the current situation in the Darfur region by his senior advisers:  Jan Pronk, the newly-appointed Special Representative for the Sudan; Mohamed Sahnoun, his Special Adviser on Africa; Jan Egeland, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator; and Erick de Mul, the Resident Coordinator in the Sudan.  He then met with United Nations agency heads based in Khartoum, as well as with representatives of a dozen non-governmental organizations that work as United Nations partners in the relief effort.  They discussed obstacles that relief workers face in dealing with more than a million people affected by the crisis in Darfur.

In the afternoon, the Secretary-General met with several Sudanese Cabinet ministers.  He asked for their cooperation to disarm the militia that are wreaking havoc in Darfur and to remove all obstacles to international relief efforts, including the importation of trucks, radios and other essential equipment and the granting of visas to international relief workers.

The Secretary-General met at the KhartoumAirport with United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had also been visiting the Sudan, including a camp for internally displaced persons in Darfur.  Mr. Powell briefed the Secretary-General on the measures that the United States would be asking the Government of the Sudan to take to relieve the crisis.

The Secretary-General told Mr. Powell about a meeting that he had held earlier in the day with a group of Sudanese Cabinet ministers.

On Wednesday evening, the Secretary-General attended a working dinner hosted by the Sudan’s First Vice-President, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha.

The Secretary-General flew out of Khartoum on Thursday morning on a United Nations plane provided by the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  He touched down in El Fasher, the administrative capital of North Darfur, in the western part of the Sudan.  To date, the conflict in all of Darfur had left 1.2 million Sudanese displaced from their homes, 800,000 others affected by the war and in need of assistance and 150,000 refugees driven across the border into Chad.

At the airport, he was briefed by the Wali, Governor of North Darfur, Osman Yousif Kibir, who described the impact of the fighting in his region and the efforts he was making to deal with it, including the search for a peaceful solution.

The Secretary-General then drove a half hour along dirt tracks made muddy by heavy rains the previous three nights, as the rainy season in the region had just begun.

On his arrival at a camp for some 12,000 displaced persons at Zam Zam, he sat under a thorn tree with about a dozen elders.  “How long have you been here?” he asked.  “About four months”, replied an old man who seemed to be the most senior of the group.  The man described the needs of the camp’s residents in areas like food, health and education.  “And what would induce you to return home?” the Secretary-General asked him.  The old man reflected, then said, “give us security and food and we would go”.  The Secretary-General then asked the group if there were any women in their leadership council.  The man responded animatedly with what was interpreted as “no way”.  The Secretary-General then smiled and said, “They could teach you something.  Why not bring some women in?”  The elders seemed not to be receptive to that idea.

He then went on a walkabout in the camp, stopping at a well installed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), after which he sat down with community women and midwives.  He limited his delegation to three and asked all others to stay away so that the women could speak freely.  And they did, describing the murderous attacks on their villages that drove them into this camp, and conditions in the camp, especially problems relating to childbirth.  One woman mentioned a series of rapes, but gave no specifics.  They all emphasized the need for more security.  When the Secretary-General pledged to them that no one would be forced to go home without adequate protection, they broke out into spontaneous applause.

The Secretary-General and his party then drove to the site of a second camp, at Meshtel, where 1,000 families had been as recently as the previous evening.  It was not a viable site for a camp and had been shut down months ago but in the past week, over 5,000 people had reoccupied it, most likely in the hope of getting registered as internally displaced and being moved to an established camp.  But when the Secretary-General’s convoy arrived at Meshtel, there were only a few mules there.  A government official said that the camp’s residents had been transferred to a better location, but aid workers were stunned by the sudden disappearance of so many people.

The Secretary-General then made a quick drive by to a large, well-organized camp at Abu Shouk, home to some 40,000 people and often shown to foreign visitors.  After that, he went for a briefing by African Union military observers who were in the process of deploying to the Sudan to monitor the ceasefire.

He then flew to N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, where he was briefed by the United Nations country team.  He met with President Idriss Deby, and attended a dinner hosted by the President.

On Friday morning, 2 July, the Chadian Prime Minister, Moussa Saki Mahamat, paid a courtesy call on the Secretary-General before he left N’Djamena to visit a camp for Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad.

He touched down in the provincial capital of Abeche, where he was briefed by the Governor, Haroun Saleh, who described the devastating impact on his province, Ouaddie, of the surge of refugees from the Sudan streaming across the border.  He estimated their number at 250,000.

The Secretary-General and his party then travelled by French military helicopter about 45 minutes to Iridimi Camp, about 60 miles from the border, which houses some 15,000 Sudanese refugees.  At a formal welcoming ceremony, the Secretary-General was briefed by a representative of the refugees, as well as by members of non-governmental organizations who described their work in the camp.  Thousands of refugees stood and sat in an orderly semicircle, holding placards that read, “Stop the ethnic cleaning and the genocide”, “No, no to war; yes, yes to peace” and “Security first, then voluntary return”.

He held a private meeting with women community leaders and then spoke to the international and local press.

He then returned to Abeche from where he flew to Khartoum.

On his return to Khartoum, the Secretary-General met with President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir to report on what he had seen in the camps for refugees and internally displaced persons.  He presented the President with a draft Joint Communiqué committing the Government of the Sudan and the United Nations to taking certain concrete steps to alleviate the suffering of the Sudanese internally displaced persons and refugees.

He was then joined by the Sudanese Foreign Minister, Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail, for a press conference.  Members of the Secretary-General’s delegation joined their Sudanese counterparts to finalize the text of the Joint Communiqué.

Before leaving Khartoum on Saturday morning, the Secretary-General was joined by Minister of Justice, Ali Yassin, for the signing of the Joint Communiqué.

Among the United Nations’ commitments were to do the utmost to alleviate humanitarian need, to help with the quick deployment of African Union ceasefire monitors and to assist with mediation efforts.

The Sudan pledged, among other things, to implement “a moratorium” on restrictions on humanitarian workers; suspend restrictions on the import of assistance materials; display a strong, credible police force to Darfur; immediately start to disarm the Janjaweed militia and other armed outlaw groups; and resume political talks in the shortest possible time.

The two sides agreed to form a high-level Joint Implementation Mechanism for their agreement, led by the Sudanese Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Jan Pronk.

The Secretary-General then left Khartoum to fly to Asmara, Eritrea.