Sudan
Sudan Tribune
Mar 29, 2006 (GENEVA) — An upsurge of violence in Sudan’s conflict-ravaged region of Darfur has uprooted a further 50,000 people since the start of the year, a senior aid official said Wednesday.
Robbie Thomson, head of Darfur aid operations at the International Organisation for Migration, said the increase in the number of displaced people was the biggest in the region since fighting broke out there three years ago.
"The situation in Darfur is as bad now as at any time since 2003," said Thomson, whose agency registers internal refugees.
The conflict in impoverished Darfur pits rebels against militias backed by Sudanese government troops, and has left some 300,000 people dead and displaced more than two million others since 2003.
Around 200,000 people have fled to neighbouring Chad.
Besides getting caught up in the conflict, civilians and relief workers in Darfur also suffer frequent attacks by bandits.
Aid agencies, which are already stretched as they try to operate across an arid region the size of France, have seen their logistical problems compounded by rising insecurity which has left many areas off-limits for their staff.
"Violence is the reason that international humanitarian community doesn’t have access," Thomson told reporters.
"I see it continuing. I don’t see any cause for it to stop. There has been no solution for the problems," he said.
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Mar 29, 2006 (NAIROBI) — A contingent of the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) arrived in Yambio in Western Equatoria State on Monday 27 March to assess the security situation after continuous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacks in the area.
The arrival of the UPDF in Yambio is possible because of an agreement signed between the Governments of Uganda and Sudan to allow the Ugandan armed forces to pursue the LRA into southern Sudan.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday 28 March, Western Equatoria State Deputy Governor Joseph Ngere told Sudan Radio Service (SRS) that the Ugandan army had come to prepare for its deployment along the Sudan-Congo border.
"They will be coming but not this force. Of course this is a vanguard, a contingency who are allowed to come and collect information, but they will be coming because we have given them all information about LRA. I am sure they will come." said Joseph Ngere.
Ngere said that the force will provide security along the border in an effort to prevent further attacks by the LRA.
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Mar 28, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Tuesday that eight African Arab nations have agreed to send troops to Sudan’s Darfur region to enforce an African Union(AU) peacekeeping mission there.
Saleh told reporters after a closed-door session of the ongoing18th Arab League (AL) summit that the decision of sending Arab troops to Darfur was made under Sudan’s request, which indicated the league’s support to Sudan’s position against a deployment of international forces in Darfur.
The AU deployed a 7,800-strong forces in Sudan’s western Darfurregion in 2004 to observe a shaky ceasefire agreement between Khartoum and the Darfur rebels, but the forces have been sufferingfrom poor funding and inadequate resources.
The AU earlier supported in principle to hand over the peacekeeping mission in Darfur to the UN forces, which has been strongly opposed by the Sudanese government.
Clashes flared up in Darfur in February 2003 when local farmerstook up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of neglecting the barren area. Thousands of people have been killed and more displaced in the violence.
Arab leaders attending the summit on Tuesday rejected the deployment of international troops in Darfur without Sudan’s consent.
"We rejected sending international forces to Darfur without Sudanese government’s approval, but decided to send Arab forces into AU forces as an assistance to the AU peacekeeping mission in the region," said a final declaration of the summit, a copy of which was obtained by Xinhua.
Some 10 heads of state of the 22-member pan-Arab body kicked off their summit in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Tuesday for talks on pressing regional issues, including Sudan’s Darfur conflict, the Iraqi situation and the Palestinian question.
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