Aid Workers Forced To Leave Camps in Darfur

by Michael Bear · 2009-03-04 04:31:00 UTC
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This just in from Mr. Crilly in Darfur:

"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.

The six NGOs are: Oxfam, CHF, Solidarites, MSF-France, MSF-Holland, Care International.

The locations are: Abu Shouk, Gereida, Kalma, Kass, Mornei, Nertiti, Muhajiriya, Sheria, Zalingei and Zam Zam."

The Thirsty Palmetto, writing from South Sudan, gives a sense of how the ICC's impending (t-minus thirty minutes) announcement is affecting aid operations in other parts of the country:

"I myself think the ICC is a load of hogswalop and am irritated as heck that the ICC prosecutor is doing this, but whatever, I'm just a lowly field worker.

What it means is that across Sudan anything even remotely international oriented is being disrupted. Different organizations react in different ways. Some are on 48 hour lockdown, not moving from the house and restocking their hibernation kits. Others are carrying on as though nothing is different suspecting, probably rightly, that southerners aren't going to be that upset that a man they fought a 25 year war with is getting arrested."

Should be an interesting day.

[Woman outside the Kalma IDP camp in Darfur - Photo from AP]

Michael Bear
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