Sudanese authorities hinder international aid workers and UN investigators

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has called on the UN Security Council to push for unhindered access for international aid organizations and UN investigators to all of those suffering in Western Sudan. "The international community, too, must demand an immediate stop to all air strikes on civilians in Darfur," stated the head of the Africa section at the STP, Ulrich Delius, on Thursday in Göttingen.

A delegation from the UN Security Council will visit the Sudan starting tomorrow (Friday) and is also expected in Darfur.

The Sudanese air force has bombed several villages in Darfur since last weekend. UN investigators were prevented from questioning eyewitnesses and visiting the bombed settlements following the air strikes. The freedom of movement of international aid workers in Darfur was also massively restricted on the instruction of authorities.

On Sunday, 15 May 2011, at least 13 civilians were killed in an air strike on the villages of Esheraya and Labado in southern Darfur. On the same day, militia cooperating with the Sudanese army set fire to five villages, Karko, Linda, Abu Mara, Jurab Bray and Asilowa, 50 kilometers south of the province capital, El Fasher (northern Darfur). Two days later, on 17 May 2011, the Sukamir settlement (northern Darfur) was bombed by the Sudanese air force. "The UN Security Council must not sit passively by while the Sudanese government violates explicit resolutions passed by the most important UN council," asserted Delius. Since the outbreak of the genocide in Darfur in February 2003, the UN Security Council has repeatedly passed resolutions demanding an immediate end to the air strikes on the civilian population, because these attacks violate international humanitarian law.

In the past two years, the Sudanese government has repeatedly expelled aid organizations from the country and dramatically worsened the situation for refugees in the affected areas by blocking the camps set up by aid organizations. "It is with grave concern that we are following the renewed arbitrary restrictions on the actions of international aid organizations in southern Darfur, decreed by the authorities last Tuesday," noted Delius. "The already catastrophic situation of the refugees will only grow worse through the hindrance of humanitarian aid." Since then, aid workers in the province of southern Darfur can only help only the people within a 15 kilometer radius around the city of Nyala. Humanitarian workers have also been banned once again from the Kalma camp, where some 80,000 refugees live, although the camp is within the 15 kilometer zone. In 2010, too, aid workers were repeatedly denied entrance to this camp because camp residents had protested against the Sudanese government.