UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called Friday for new international action to halt violence in Darfur in a report released which highlighted the failure of negotiations and deteriorating security in the Sudanese region.
Six months after the Sudanese government promised to make efforts to end attacks on the Darfur population by pro-government militias, Annan said: "The armed groups are re-arming and the conflict is spreading outside Darfur."
"Large quantities of arms have been carried into Darfur in defiance of the Security Council decision taken in July. A build-up of arms and intensification of violence, including air attacks, suggest the security situation is deteriorating."
Annan, who went to Sudan in July with US Secretary of State Colin Powell to negotiate with the government, has made repeated warnings in recent weeks that conditions were worsening in the region in the west of Sudan.
The UN's World Food Program suspended food aid to Darfur at the end of December after a rebel attack on one town triggered deadly clashes with government forces.
Since February 2003, Sudanese troops and their militia allies have been fighting rebel groups in Darfur, who have been demanding a greater share of oil revenues for development.
According to the UN, at least 70,000 people have been killed, mainly civilians, and about 1.6 million have fled their homes.
Annan said in his report for the UN Security Council that new rebel movements are emerging and launching attacks in the area of oil facilities in Western Kordofan.
"I am concerned that we may move into a period of intense violence unless swift action is taken," the UN secretary general warned.
"The pressures on the parties to abide by their commitments are not having a perceptible effect on the ground. This leads me to conclude that we need to reconsider what measures are required to achieve improves security and protection" for the Darfur homeless. The UN had considered Darfur to be the world's biggest humanitarian crisis before the Dec. 26 tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean.
Just four days earlier, Annan had urged the Security Council to consider a harder line on Darfur, while rejecting a US request that he visit Sudan again.
The US has sought sanctions against Sudan but this has been opposed on the Security Council. The US ambassador to the UN, John Danforth, a former US envoy on Sudan, expressed his frustration with the international community in December, saying "we're getting nowhere in Darfur."
Two UN resolutions made veiled threats of sanctions against Sudan.
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
RSS