Fragile situation in Darfur despite peace deal

The recent signing of a Darfur peace deal has so far not resulted in a tangible improvement of the humanitarian situation in the troubled western Sudanese region where 3.6 million people continue to be affected by the conflict, United Nations officials say. "This is a long-term emergency situation and residential populations are getting more and more vulnerable," Dawn Elizabeth Blalock, advocacy and public information officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Khartoum told IRIN on Wednesday. "Since the beginning of this year, approximately 200,000 people have been newly displaced," she added. "At the same time, we also see a trickle back of IDPs [internally displaced persons] who are returning to their villages." Some IDPs are returning to the villages of Dito and Joghana in South Darfur State, Blalock observed. More than 30,000 people had fled these settlements during attacks in April and May and had found refuge in Gereida town. The total number of displaced remains at an estimated 1.8 million, however, many of them have been displaced or redisplaced several times since the beginning of this year. An analyst in the region said that the security situation had improved over the past weeks due to the absence of large-scale fighting between government forces and rebels. However, since the signing on 5 May of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) between the Sudan government and one faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Minni Minnawi, the conflict had been characterised by small but violent clashes between Minnawi's faction and another led by Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur. Due to the ongoing security problems, the UN has been unable to reach some 250,000 vulnerable people across Darfur, Manuel Aranda da Silva, UN humanitarian coordinator and deputy special representative of the Secretary-General in Sudan, warned on Monday. On 13 June, six staff members of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) were abducted by members of Abdelwahid’s faction of the SLA in Irgue, 50km west of Kutum town in North Darfur, but were released the following day. Further to the south, in Kaguro, the same rebel faction detained a group of African Union (AU) peacekeepers on patrol for several hours on 14 June. According to UN sources, the Jebel Marra mountains were largely off-limits for all humanitarian actors, while access to other areas in West Darfur, north and south of the capital of El Geneina, remained problematic. Access was also difficult between Gereida and Nyala town in South Darfur and around the Tawilla- Shangil Tobayi and the Haskanita area in North Darfur. Heightened tensions in IDP camps, and many organised protests against the DPA, were further complicating the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Although many protests were peaceful, anti-DPA demonstrations in Kalma and Kass camps in South Darfur, Zalingei in West Darfur, and Tawilla and Abu Shouk camps in North Darfur turned violent with two fatal casualties. "We need to provide more information to explain the DPA to the local population," Blalock observed. Funding shortages have affected the number of organisations that can provide healthcare and are undermining the 208 primary healthcare centres that are serving an estimated 2.2 million people, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) said. US actress and Unicef goodwill ambassador, Mia Farrow, who had just returned from a visit to the war-torn region, told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that "only 20 percent" of the money Unicef required for its Darfur operations in 2006 had been raised so far. Meanwhile, Marie Okabe, deputy spokeswoman for the UN Secretary-General told reporters in New York on Tuesday that the leadership of the AU/UN joint assessment mission, which is finalising its findings on support needed for the AU mission in Darfur and on a possible role of the UN in Darfur, have requested to meet with President Umar al-Bashir before they leave the country. On Monday, at a meeting of the ruling National Congress Party Parliamentary Group, al-Bashir rejected the proposed presence of international forces in Darfur, and reiterated his opposition to UN troops again during a joint press conference with visiting South African President, Thabo Mbeki.