United nations, EU, where are you??

France mobilizes Dafur troops
Step in the right direction.

The U.N. Security Council has threatened to clamp sanctions on Sudan in 30 days if it does not disarm and prosecute marauding militia in Darfur, under a U.S.-drafted resolution.

Sudan rejected the move as "misguided."

The 13-0 vote, with abstentions from China and Pakistan, came after the United States deleted the provocative word "sanctions" from the resolution and substituted a reference to a provision in the U.N. charter that describes various forms of sanctions.

No specific measures were identified to punish the Sudanese government. Friday's resolution also placed a weapons embargo on armed groups in Darfur.

Whether sanctions ever will be imposed is questionable. The United States and its European allies in the Security Council faced considerable opposition on the resolution and had to reword the sanctions threat to attract enough votes.

However, many humanitarian organisations believe the resolution is far too mild.

"The last thing we wanted to do was lay the groundwork for sanctions," U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said. "But the government of Sudan has left us no choice."

"It has done the unthinkable. It has fostered an armed attack on its own civilian population. It has created a humanitarian disaster," he said.

The measure, co-sponsored by Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Chile and Romania, demands that the Sudanese government disarm and prosecute within 30 days militia known as Janjaweed, or the Security Council would consider punitive measures.

At least 30,000 people have died and thousands have been raped in Darfur. Some 1 million villagers have been driven into barren camps and 2 million need food and medicine in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

In Bredjing, Chad on Friday, Darfur refugees poured over the border, waiting patiently to receive sacks of rice, tins of cooking oil and green plastic sheets from aid groups.

The resolution tells the United Nations to plan for peacekeepers, but none are expected soon. The resolution also seeks to augment African Union monitors, who have reported more rapes and abuses in Darfur in the last few weeks.

KHARTOUM SAYS "NO"

Sudan's Information Minister Al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik rejected what he called the Security Council's "misguided resolution."

Malik said the Security Council had intentionally ignored efforts by Khartoum, the African Union and the Arab League to resolve the crisis. He blamed the crisis on African groups who rebelled last year against Khartoum's policies.

Sudanese Minister of the Interior, Abdul Rahim, told CNN his country objected to the resolution but could not reject it.

Sudan Says It Accepts U.N. Resolution on Darfur

ritish soldiers have been put on standby for a possible deployment to Sudan to help tackle what the U.N. has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, the Independent on Sunday says.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence described the article as "just speculation", but she repeated comments made by Britain's top military commander last week that the country could send troops to Sudan if they were requested.

She said no such request had been made.

The newspaper said soldiers of the 12th Mechanised Infantry Brigade were being briefed this weekend about a possible trip to Sudan.

General Mike Jackson, chief of staff, said last week a brigade could be put together "very quickly indeed".

The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday which threatens Sudan with sanctions in 30 days if it fails to stop fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region.

The United Nations estimates at least 30,000 people have been killed and more than a million others displaced by the conflict.

Sudan said Saturday that it will accept the UN resolution

A United Nations human rights team has found three mass graves with at least 99 bodies in Ivory Coast's northern rebel stronghold of Korhogo, the U.N. mission in the West African country said on Monday.

A U.N. spokesman in the main city Abidjan said the victims had been killed during clashes between rival factions on June 20-21. He said it was not clear whether civilians were among the dead.

"Some of these people were killed by bullets. According to reliable and consistent witness accounts, others died from suffocation," the U.N. mission said in a statement.

The June clashes followed what rebels said was a failed assassination attempt against the political leader of their movement, Guillaume Soro.

The rebels said at the time several fighters detained after an attack on Soro's convoy in Korhogo had disclosed that they backed Ibrahim Coulibaly, a Paris-based military chief rival to Soro. Coulibaly -- known as "IB" -- has denied any involvement.

London-based human rights group Amnesty International said it had received information indicating that dozens of people arrested by Soro's forces had been put in containers and died from suffocation.

Others appeared to have been decapitated or killed with their hands bound behind their back, it said in a statement.

The U.N. team which visited Korhogo said it was concerned about the people who were still in detention. A full report was due to be published soon.

"We have nothing to say for the moment, until the report comes out," rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate said.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, has been split in two since a civil war grew out of a failed coup in September 2002.

The conflict was declared over last year but progress towards peace has been slow and human rights groups say serious abuses and killings have continued in both the rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

Between the two sides are 4,000 French soldiers with another 6,240 peacekeepers being sent by the United Nations.

Hampered by monsoon, UN begins aid drops in Darfur
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
03 August 2004


The UN has begun aid drops of food into remote areas of Darfur because of continuing insecurity on Sudanese roads and the heavy rains, which have combined to hamper the emergency aid effort.

"Dropping food by air is always an expensive last resort, but, for many parts of Darfur, we simply have no other option at this time of year," said Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the Sudan director of the World Food Programme.

The UN agency dropped 22 tons of food supplies to the farming town of Fur Buranga in western Darfur on Sunday, and plans to deliver this month a total of 1,400 tons of food to help 72,000 people displaced by the conflict.

It is hoped that the roads will be passable again in September once the rainy season eases.

But the WFP also reported that groups of rebels, who took up arms against the central government 17 months ago , had looted aid convoys on two occasions last monthstealing hundreds of bags of sorghum and other cereals.

The Sudanese government was given 30 days by the UN Security Council last week to improve the security situation in Darfur, where a ceasefire has still to be implemented, or face economic sanctions.

It must also disarm the Arab militias backed by Khartoum who have been accused of killing more than 30,000 people and forcing more than one million from their homes.

The World Food Programme reached 800,000 people last month with food aid, and has set a target of 1.2 million in August.

"The air-drop operation will go some way towards achieving this goal but the challenges posed by insecurity, banditry, bad weather and a shortage of resources are enormous," the WFP said.

The Sudanese government is pleading for more time to meet its commitments, while issuing tough statements aimed at deterring Western governments from dispatching military forces to Darfur.

European Union experts, including one Briton, are to set off from Brussels today to determine the logistical and supply needs of Nigerian and Rwandan forces that are to be deployed by the African Union to protect 120 ceasefire monitors on the ground.

The aid pipeline will receive a significant boost next week, when a humanitarian corridor opens through Libya, reflecting the improved relations between Tripoli and the West.

The first shipment of Swiss wheat flour will arrive in Benghazi on 11 August, but it will take three weeks for the aid to reach Sudan through the Sahara desert.

The relief agency Médecins sans Frontières said yesterday the amount of food getting through remained insufficient. More food needs to be provided as only about 50 per cent of requirements are being met.

The two helicopter gunships took off late in the morning, blades slashing the air as they banked over Nayala airport to head off for another day on the killing grounds of Darfur.

The Russian-built Hines began their military mission just after a flight had arrived from Britain loaded with aid for villagers fleeing the murders, mutilations and rapes of the Sudanese region, which is experiencing what the United Nations has described as the "world's worst humanitarian crisis''.

Loaded ammunition trucks were seen heading for the airport just before the gunships took off. Aid workers say they frequently find fragments of weapons launched from the air outside Nayala.

The refugees tell the same story: first comes the attack from the air, and then the Janjaweed militia arrive to mop up. Women are raped in front of their sons, their fathers, their husbands. Families are chained together and burnt alive.

Ibrahim Salim Musa and his family arrived in Nayala from a village outside Ta'asha in the north-east three weeks ago. Their home, and those of their neighbours, was burnt down, he said, by the Janjaweed. About 10 people, including two children, were killed. The rest fled.

Mr Musa, 37, his wife Safeera and their four children aged between three and 12 live in a room in a half-built house with shattered windows. They share with four other families. Mr Musa said of the attack: "We had heard there would be trouble. These men were boasting they were going to get rid of the Zurghas (a pejorative term for blacks)so we were prepared to get out quickly.

"It was very late; the children were asleep. We heard a lot of shouting and then rifle-firing. They were mostly on foot, but there were trucks and some had horses. They were dressed in white; we knew who they were.

"We ran. We were lucky because our house was towards the end of the village. We looked out from the trees; homes were burning. Later we heard who died.''

In another room, an old woman in a black chador sat rocking, locked in her private misery. Another woman shouted out: "They killed her sons, her brother. They want to kill us all. They are devils, just devils.''

Her father hushed her; another family member took her away. He turned: "They attacked us because we are from the Zaghawa [a tribe] and they say we support the rebels. But that is wrong. We are just poor people.''

The helicopters are flown by members of the Sudanese military, which is accused of helping the Arab Janjaweed militia in its war, purportedly against the rebel African Sudan Liberation Army, but one waged indiscriminately against African civilians. The conflict has claimed up to 30,000 lives and driven a million from their homes.

How do you explain the inaction of the ICC and its member states?