Daily Darfur: Security Situation, Stable. Food and Water? Not So Much.

by Michelle . · 2009-04-07 03:29:00 UTC
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Officials with UNAMID briefed the Peace and Security Council of the AU yesterday, noting that while the security situation in Darfur has thus far remained stable since the ICC arrest warrants were issued for Bashir, operations are not quite business-as-usual:

"Rodolphe Adada, the joint A.U./U.N. Special Representative for Darfur says Sudan's decision to expel [13 international] aid agencies in Darfur has complicated the work of the hybrid peacekeeping force known as UNAMID. ‘It is like a threat. You cannot be doing just your normal business in front of many hungry and angry people,' he said.

Adada says hungry Darfurians do not want to hear that UNAMID's mandate is strictly peacekeeping and not aid distribution."

Meanwhile, the president of InterAction warned that as many as a million of Darfur's internally displaced could be without clean water, food, sanitation, and health services in a matter of weeks.

Boosting Engagement

Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced yesterday that he will lead a delegation to Sudan next week:

"This is significant," a U.S. diplomatic source told Reuters. "It is the first Congressional delegation to Sudan we have had since 2007. Like the U.S. envoy's current visit, it is a new tack."

(Think they need a blogger to tag along?)

But if you ask Save Heleta, he might say that the move is mere window dressing:

"After the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II, the world said "never again" to unspeakable mass killings. The ‘never again' promise, however, meant nothing during the Rwandan genocide. It does not mean anything today in Darfur.

For poor around the globe and especially in Africa, it will not mean anything tomorrow either, as we live in a world where only self-interests of powerful countries, not ethics, morals, compassion and human decency play a major role in stopping large-scale exterminations of human beings."

I can only hope that, this time, there might be a belated attempt to prove otherwise.

[Photo: This photo, made available by Albany Associates, shows engineers from Egypt deployed to serve with the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) peacekeeping operation in 2008. UN and African peacekeepers can reassure people in war-ravaged Darfur but cannot replace foreign aid workers expelled by the Khartoum government, a UN official said. (AFP/AA/File/Stuart Price)]

Michelle . has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns.
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