KHARTOUM — Sudan said yesterday it would monitor travel by UN/African Union peacekeepers in Darfur —a day after the UN Security Council extended the force’s mandate and told Khartoum to stop hindering its work.

The government has been hostile to the Unamid peacekeepers ever since they began to deploy in 2007, and relations worsened after the International Criminal Court indicted the Sudanese president for war crimes, and more recently genocide, in Darfur. 

Peace talks between Khartoum and the rebels are under way in Qatar but have been boycotted by the two main rebel groups, and eight people were killed this week in a surge of violence in refugee camps between supporters and opponents of the talks.

The UN Security Council extended Unamid’s mandate on Friday for a further year and ordered it to give priority to protecting civilians and ensuring free humanitarian access to refugees.

Senior information ministry official Rabie Abdelati accused Unamid  of failing to halt the violence in the camps and harbouring instigators of the fighting, and said the force must in future inform the government of all travel plans.

“Unamid has not done its job at all — there was shooting, burning, people died and all they did was watch,” Abdelati said. He was in South Darfur lastweek when the fighting between refugee groups broke out.

“The governor of South Darfur told Unamid they should either do their job (in Kalma refugee camp) or get out and let the government take over,” he said.

Unamid staff will have their bags searched at the airport and they will have to inform the government before moving on roads even within South Darfur’s capital Nyala, he said. — Reuters

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form