PRESS BRIEFING ON DARFUR BY EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR

 

Physically and emotionally burnt-out relief workers, with “front row seats” to the world’s puzzling indifference to unremitting misery and deprivation in western Sudan’s Darfur region, were becoming frustrated and angry that they were acting as a band-aid for failed political action, said the United Nations’ top emergency relief official today, calling for a robust and immediate international response to end the latest crisis in Africa’s largest country.

Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, told correspondents at a press briefing in New York today that there had been no real let-up in the grave violations of human rights and brutal attacks against women, children, the displaced and refugees in war-torn Darfur, and many aid workers believed that they were being used as “alibis” and substitutes for political and security action that the world was not taking.

One year since the alarm had been raised to what the United Nations had called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, a number of things had happened in the Sudan -- most of them bad, he said.  The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) had doubled to some 1.9 million, and was growing by the day.  “We are front-row witnesses to more massacres ... more displacements and massive suffering, and we shouldn’t be, at the beginning of 2005.”

There was some good news, he added. The humanitarian community -- United Nations agencies, along with non-governmental organizations and the Red Cross and Red Crescent family of agencies -- had done its part, putting some 9,000 relief workers on the ground.  The 8,000 local staff and nearly 1,000 internationals had been able to avoid the massive famine that many had predicted, but if the situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate, serious problems might arise as the country approaches its cyclical “hunger gap”, from April until harvest time in October.

Mr. Egeland feared that the gains against famine might be turned back, because there were now reportedly hundreds of thousand of desperate and hungry people seeking shelter on the outskirts of already overcrowded IDP and refugee camps.  The total population whose lives could be a stake by midyear might be as large as the population of his home country, Norway -- about 4.5 million, he said.

But again, relief aid was not enough.  Mr. Egeland said that the report of the Secretary-General’s International Commission of Inquiry on the conflict in Darfur, presented to the Security Council just two day’s ago by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, had amply documented the ongoing atrocities since early 2003 when rebels took up arms against government forces, but has since been compounded by attacks by Janjaweed and other militias against villages and civilians.

“War crimes and crimes against humanity have occurred”, he said, declaring that the armed militiamen were still “getting away with murder” of women and children, as were those who directed the militia forces.  To make matters worse, the ongoing crises and deteriorating security had severely hamstrung humanitarian efforts in the region.  “Workers have been killed, our helicopters have been shot at, our trucks are being looted there, we are paralysed”,
Mr. Egeland added.  “We could have provided daily bread for more than 2 million people.  We are at best giving to 1.5 million people.”

“This cannot continue ... the Security Council has to act”, he said.  The safe zone of Bosnia and many other historic examples had shown that humanitarians were good at putting plaster on a wound, “but if you don't heal the wound, many, many more people will die because there is a war on.”  Among the other actions that could have an immediate effect, he called for a four- or five-fold increase in the African Union monitoring force in Darfur, now numbering between 1,800 and 1,900.  While those peacekeepers were doing a great job, they needed more help.  “This should not have been the only response a year after African leaders, as well as the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union -- all the world’s great Powers -- said that the biggest priority was to put a robust force on the ground.”

“We now have four to five times more aid workers there”, he continued.  “The African Union must be strengthened and it should be possible for the world community to help with the deployment of a more robust force.”  He added that more pressure must be put on the Sudanese Government, the rebels, ethnic and local leaders “who take those positions that lead to massive killing of women and children”.

To questions about the current debate in the Security Council about referring those deemed responsible for war crimes to the International Criminal Court for prosecution, Mr. Egeland said that, while there were others within the United Nations who could provide a more comprehensive answer, the massive impunity that had characterized the crisis thus far could not continue.  Both the Government and militia had a duty to protect civilian lives.  He did, however, suggest that perhaps sanctions should be considered, although he could not say against which side.

Asked if the world would take more immediate action if the Security Council would declare that the ongoing atrocities amounted to genocide,
Mr. Egeland said that he was not well placed to answer that question, but it  was clear that the Council must take some sort of action quickly, because the humanitarian community could be facing a “nightmare scenario” if, say, negotiations on what type of response to deploy in the Sudan dragged on for
100 days or more and then, at the height of the hunger-gap season, there were
4 million starving, defenceless people in Darfur trapped in a civil war.  “At least, let’s get a more robust African Union force on the ground now.”

“We don’t have even a second to wait”, he said.  “This is an area bigger than France and it’s filled with only one thing ... an abundance of angry young men with Kalashnikovs and other automatic arms.”

To question’s about the current response to the crisis, he said that the huge staff working around the clock were burning themselves out physically and emotionally faster than any he had ever seen, mainly delivering food aid.  There had been promises from some of the large donor countries for more food and other resources, but over the past year, the relief effort had forged ahead with very little cash.

He said that perhaps $650 million would be required for Sudan’s Darfur region alone.  About half of that had been secured.  “I wish we had a fraction of [the Indian Ocean tsunami aid mobilization] for the Darfur tsunami, which has displaced many more and which is potentially taking also more lives altogether unless action is taken”, he said.

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