As a UN deadline for action nears, the Sudanese government has not reined in Arab militias accused of killing villagers in the Darfur region, diplomats said a UN official told the Security Council.
Assistant Secretary-General Tuliameni Kalomoh told council members at a closed-door meeting Tuesday that the UN continues to receive reports of attacks by the militiamen as well as of looting and harassment by men in uniform.
But Kalomoh told the council that humanitarian aid access has improved and there was cooperation in identifying safe havens for the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees, said diplomats who were at the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity.
According to council diplomats, Kalomoh also said that the Sudanese military was still blocking humanitarian flights and Sudanese authorities were exerting excessive pressure to get those who fled to return to their villages.
Kalomoh's briefing took place ahead of the Aug. 30 deadline the council set in a resolution adopted a month ago calling for the government to take action to improve security and humanitarian access.
UN officials say Darfur has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis since African rebels rose against the government in February 2003 to protest its pro-Arab bias. The government has been accused of trying to crush the revolt by backing a scorched-earth policy it denies, although last week it acknowledged it has "control" over some militia.
Khartoum has promised to give the United Nations a list of militants suspected of involvement in the bloodshed, but Kalomoh told the council it has not yet received any names, the diplomats said.
The resolution threatened punitive economic and diplomatic mea-sures if Khartoum didn't move quickly. But Britain's Foreign Office said on Friday that a majority of Security Council members oppose immediate heavy sanctions if Sudan fails to quell the violence, which has killed up to 30,000 and forced more than 1 million to flee their homes.
A statement by the council af-ter Tuesday's meeting made no mention of any punitive measures. Instead, the council voiced "strong support" to the African Union's efforts to tackle the crisis and urged Sudan and rebel leaders meeting in Nigeria to reach a political settlement and end the violence.
The African Union already has 80 observers in Darfur, protected by 150 Rwandan troops, to monitor a rarely observed cease-fire between black African rebels and government-backed Arab militias. But an AU plan to send nearly 2,000 peacekeepers to monitor the region, which is the size of France and has 147 known refugee camps, was rejected on Monday by Sudan.
US deputy ambassador Stuart Holliday said Washington hasn't ruled out sanctions, but he focused on proposals to beef up the African monitoring and protection force.
"People are still dying and they're still scared in Darfur, and I think the important thing is to address the protection and security issues that remain," he said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to send a written report to the council by Aug. 30 on Sudan's implementation of the Darfur Plan of Action, which spelled out specific steps Sudan needed to take. His special representative to Sudan, Jan Pronk, is expected to brief the council on Sept. 2.
Russian UN Ambassador Andrey Denisov, the current council president, said members were waiting for Pronk's report before making a determination.
Asked for Russia's assessment of Khartoum's progress, he said "still there is a long way to go to implement the resolution ... and to prevent humanitarian suffering."
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