UN agencies to be allowed into Sudan conflict state
UNITED NATIONS — Sudan has agreed to let UN relief agencies into its troubled South Kordofan state where government troops are battling rebels, UN officials said Friday.
There have been growing international demands for access to the state after a UN report last week said there had been extrajudicial killings and widespread disappearances in South Kordofan.
Tens of thousands are believed to have fled their homes since June and a US envoy said recently the Sudanese government had threatened to shoot down UN flights that went there.
A four-day assessment of food and relief supplies in South Kordofan will start on Saturday in the main city of Kadugli, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told AFP.
The mission will be led by the Sudanese government’s humanitarian aid commissioner and “several” UN agencies,” Haq added. “The mission hopes to carry out assessments in several locations.”
Sudan’s UN ambassador, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, said six UN agencies would be involved in the trip.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said on Tuesday there was an “increasingly dire” situation in South Kordofan, where government forces have been fighting rebels close to rival South Sudan.
A report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN mission in Sudan, released Monday, detailed “extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and illegal detention, enforced disappearances and attacks against civilians” in South Kordofan in June.
It also described the aerial bombardment of civilian areas in Kadugli.
The UN said the allegations could amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes. The Sudan government labeled the report as biased.
Russia and China have blocked US attempts to get the UN Security Council to condemn the Sudanese bombing and other military activities, diplomats said.
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Sudan says UN agencies get access to conflict area
* U.N. report accused Sudan of abuses in Southern Kordofan
* Sudan enovy says 6 UN agencies to start mission Saturday
* U.S. urges Security Council action on Southern Kordofan
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 19 (Reuters) – Six U.N. agencies will join a government-organized mission to Sudan’s conflict-ridden Southern Kordofan region to assess the humanitarian needs, Sudan’s U.N. envoy said on Friday.
Earlier this week a report by the U.N. human rights office called for an inquiry into reports of abuses in Southern Kordofan that it said could amount to war crimes, an allegation that Khartoum dismissed as “unfounded.” [ID:nL5E7JF1GW]
“The (Sudanese) humanitarian aid commissioner and six U.N. agencies will go to Southern Kordofan on Saturday,” Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman told Reuters.
He added that they would “assess the situation and see what is needed to fill the gaps” in humanitarian aid delivery to the region, which holds most of north Sudan’s oil reserves.
Tensions have flared in the oil-rich state after South Sudan seceded last month, taking its oilfields with it. U.N. officials have complained of limited or no access to the area, which contains large populations which sided with South Sudan during a 20-year civil war.
Osman said the U.N. agencies going on the mission would include the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Food Program, the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children’s fund. There will also be several foreign non-U.N. organizations taking part, he said.
OCHA spokeswoman Amanda Pitt said the mission would last four days and the participants hoped to “carry out assessments in several locations.”
Osman said the fact that the mission is taking place disproved the charges of rampant human rights abuses and neglect contained in the U.N. human rights office’s report.
“This defeats the allegations in the preliminary report,” he said. “There are no military attacks in Southern Kordofan.”
‘GRAVE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION’
The United Nations said on June 22 that 73,000 people had fled Southern Kordofan after more than two weeks of fighting although some later returned to their homes. [ID:nLDE75L1Q2]
Some activists have accused Khartoum of starting the fighting to assert its authority there, a charge the government denies.
The U.N. rights office report alleged violations in the state capital Kadugli and the surrounding Nuba mountains including extrajudicial killings, illegal detention, enforced disappearances, attacks against civilians, looting of homes and mass displacement.
The U.S.-based Satellite Sentinel Project said on Wednesday that it has identified three more mass graves in Southern Kordofan in addition to three others it identified in July.
For weeks the United States and European members of the U.N. Security Council have been pressing the 15-nation body to condemn Khartoum over the situation in Southern Kordofan, but veto powers Russia and China, along with South Africa, India and Brazil oppose the idea, Western envoys said.
The council discussed the issue again on Friday after U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay asked council members to weigh in on it. But the divided council took no action, which a U.S. official made clear Washington was not happy about.
“Pillay has asked the U.N. Security Council to speak out against the grave humanitarian situation in South Kordofan and has recommended that an independent investigation be conducted into reported violations of international law,” he said.
“We have made clear that we support commissioner Pillay’s calls and continue to urge the other members of the council to join us in speaking out on behalf of the people of South Kordoran,” the U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. (Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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