UNHCR moves staff from South Darfur

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday it was temporarily withdrawing some international staff from South Darfur in western Sudan because authorities there had prevented the staff from performing their duties. Jean-Marie Fakhouri, UNHCR's operations director for Sudan said the staff had been restricted to Nyala for nearly three weeks. The orders came from Sudanese officials following an incident on 20 October when UNHCR officials and other UN colleagues intervened to stop the involuntary relocation of internally displaced persons (IDPs), he said. Sudanese authorities responded by restricting UNHCR staff to Nyala - a ban they initially said would be lifted on 6 November. The restrictions on three of the UNHCR's four international staff had, however, not been lifted by Wednesday. Three of them were relocated to El Geneina, West Darfur on Thursday, the UNHCR said in a statement. "It is extremely frustrating for our staff to be forced to sit idle," Fakhouri said. "If we are not going to be allowed to do our work in South Darfur, then UNHCR has no choice but to go elsewhere where the needs are just as great. Thus, I have instructed our three international protection officers to temporarily relocate to El Geneina." UNHCR has also put on hold plans to open an office in El Fasher in North Darfur, which was slated for later this month pending resolution of the situation in South Darfur. It added that it had asked the UN Humanitarian Coordinator to take up the matter urgently with Sudanese authorities to enable UNHCR to resume its work as part of the UN team in South Darfur. UNHCR has been working in Nyala since 6 June as part of the collaborative UN effort in South Darfur. The bulk of UNHCR's staff in Darfur are based in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, where increasing security incidents in recent weeks have also impeded access to displaced communities, particularly along the border with Chad. In a related development, the representative of the UN Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin, has voiced concern over continuing reports of forced relocation and other serious human rights violations against displaced persons in Darfur. In a statement issued in Geneva on Thursday, Kalin called upon the Sudanese government to "fulfill its responsibilities to protect and assist its own people". Sudanese security forces entered on Tuesday the Al Geir camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the South Darfur state of western Sudan for the second time in a week, relief sources and human rights organisations said. Amnesty International said police fired tear gas during the attack, assaulted residents and bulldozed shelters in the camp, ignoring the protests of representatives of the UN, the African Union and international aid agencies who were present during the attack. "As the Secretary-General made clear in his recent statement on the situation in Al Geir, the forcible relocation of persons, whether from their homes or places of refuge, is a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, particularly when their safety or well-being is compromised by the move," Kalin said in the statement. "The Representative therefore calls on the government to immediately halt forced relocations and other serious violations of the rights of displaced persons by its own officials and act to prevent such actions perpetrated by Janjawid militia and others," he added. The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops and militias allegedly allied to the government against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalisation and discrimination of the region by the state. The conflict has displaced an estimated 1.45 million people and sent another 200,000 fleeing across the border into Chad.