Aid workers fear more violence planned as Sudan prepares for war crimes ruling
Rob Crilly, The Times, March 4, 2009
ZAM ZAM CAMP, Sudan - Foreign aid workers have been ordered out of key locations across Darfur as the Sudanese Government flexes its muscles before a decision today by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on whether to charge President al-Bashir with war crimes.
Six aid agencies, including Oxfam and Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), were told to move international staff out of ten camps and towns for their own safety.
Diplomats and United Nations officials have been trying to maintain the illusion of business as usual while the world waits to find out what the ICC judges have decided. More than 50,000 people in Sudan's western desert region have been displaced by recent fighting, government forces are out in strength in the main cities and aid workers are being separated from the millions who need their help.
Few believe the Government's explanation that it is acting out of concern for foreign nationals. “If there is a reaction to the announcement it is unlikely to be made by displaced people against the agencies who provide them with services,” said an aid worker in Darfur. “The worry is that the Government will be the one to react and doesn't want internationals to see what they are up to.”
Judges at the ICC have spent eight months considering evidence that Mr al-Bashir should stand trial on ten charges of genocide, murder and crimes against humanity.
The UN estimates that more than 300,000 people have died since rebels took up arms against the Government six years ago. Mr al-Bashir's regime armed Arab militias - known as the Janjawid - and sent them on a brutal scorched-earth campaign. His aircraft continue to bomb targets.
The Times has learnt that six aid agencies - including the French charity Solidarités and two American organisations, CHF and Care International - were called to a hastily arranged meeting with government officials in Khartoum on Sunday.
They were told initially to pull international staff back to Khartoum, prompting fears that they would be expelled altogether. They have since been allowed to remain in Darfur's three regional capitals.
Workers affected include doctors and nurses with MSF trying to control an outbreak of meningitis in Nertiti, and managers of water projects in several camps. A Sudanese official also telephoned several other agencies in South Darfur yesterday warning them to withdraw.
A UN official said: “The situation right now is quite fragile. This news came as a jolt. We are working closely with the NGOs and the authorities to ensure the aid workers can return and continue their jobs as soon as possible.” The world's largest humanitarian operation is under way in Darfur, where almost three million people have been displaced by violence. After six years, countless UN resolutions and a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force, thousands more families have lost their homes in recent weeks.
About 26,000 people have reached Zam Zam, just outside the North Darfur capial of El Fasher, in the past month after fleeing a government assault on the town of Muhajiriya. They were still arriving yesterday, crammed on to trucks or with their belongings piled on handcarts. Families are camped in the sand, using plastic sheets and blankets to build makeshift windbreaks - anything to keep out the dust and blistering sun.
Mariam Ahmed Abu had managed to stay in her own home through much of the fighting. Then the Janjawid arrived last month to wrest control of Muhajiriya from rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement. As she walked to fetch water with her daughter they were caught in a gunfight. Her daughter was shot and died at her feet.
“My son had been killed and now my daughter and there was no one left to care for me,” she said, beside a tent that is now her home. “The same thing had happened to many of the other old people so we all came together.” Few here have heard of the ICC or the campaign for justice on their behalf. Those that have fear the Government could use it to seek revenge on refugees who in the main support rebel factions.
Police officers from a joint UN and African Union peacekeeping force patrolled Zam Zam to reassure residents that they would not be abandoned if trouble flared. Abdullah Ismail, one of the camp's tribal sheikhs, said everyone was waiting to see what would happen. “People are afraid,” he said. “We are worried about what the Government will do. It is not a good time.”
Thierry Durand, director of operations with MSF-France, said that thousands of people would be left with no access to medical facilities after nurses and doctors were evacuated.