UN Emergency Relief Coordinator to lead assessment team to Darfur

A team comprising representatives of several United Nations agencies and Sudanese officials will tour Sudan's troubled Darfur region to assess the humanitarian situation there. It will be led by UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, the UN reported. The team, which is scheduled to visit Darfur's three regions - northern, western and southern - next week, will examine issues of protection, possible gaps in humanitarian assistance and ways to increase relief and funding, the UN said in a statement on Tuesday. According to UN agencies, at least 700,000 people have been displaced within Darfur, which is in western Sudan since fighting erupted there last year between the government, allied militias and rebel groups. Another 110,000 refugees have fled to neighbouring Chad. Next week's visit follows the revision of an appeal by the UN for funds to support relief activities in Darfur. The UN said on 9 April that it needed US $115 million to help the affected people cope with the effects of the conflict. This was a five-fold increase from an earlier appeal in September. In an interview with IRIN earlier this month, Egeland said Darfur's was one of the world’s most neglected humanitarian crises and that a "scorched-earth" campaign of ethnic cleansing was being perpetrated there. He called for an immediate ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, the restoration of law and order, and prompt and generous donor support. However, Sulaf al-Din Salih, the commissioner-general of Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, subsequently rejected such accusations about Darfur, telling IRIN that the international community had been misinformed about the reality there. The accusations, he added during an interview in the capital, Khartoum, were part of a campaign against the Sudanese government and people. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has hailed a humanitarian ceasefire agreed in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, on 8 April between the government and two rebels groups operating in Darfur, but said it required immediate and rigorous monitoring. In a statement issued on Wednesday, HRW warned that without protection and greatly increased humanitarian assistance, displaced civilians risked dying from epidemics and famine in Darfur.