Sudan kicks out UN team in Darfur feud
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir addresses the National Consultative Council in the capital Khartoum on October 21, 2014. Campaigning for Sudan’s presidential and parliamentary elections starts on Tuesday with Omar al-Bashir facing little competition for the presidency. PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- Ties between Unamid and the government have deteriorated in recent weeks over the mission’s attempts to investigate reports that government troops raped 200 women and girls in the Darfur village of Tabit last month.
- The UN mission was set up in 2007 to protect civilians and secure aid to Darfur, which has been wracked by conflict since 2003 when ethnic insurgents rebelled against the government.
KHARTOUM
Sudan has asked the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (Unamid) to close one of its key offices after it accused government troops of human rights abuses, raising tensions.
Ties between Unamid and the government have deteriorated in recent weeks over the mission’s attempts to investigate reports that government troops raped 200 women and girls in the Darfur village of Tabit last month.
Unamid said it received a formal request “from the government of Sudan to close the mission’s human rights office in Khartoum on November 23”.
The mission “has always had a liaison office” that includes a human rights section, its press department told AFP. It said it was “working to clarify” the situation with the government.
Sudan’s Foreign ministry confirmed it had asked the office to close, saying its role was “outside of their mandate”.
But spokesman Yousif al-Kordofani said the ministry and Unamid had exchanged letters about the issue before the Tabit affair.
WORRYING ABUSES
The ministry also hit out at Unamid on Tuesday, accusing its peacekeepers of “worrying abuses and violations” in Darfur during the years of its mandate, including rape.
“We observed incidents in which Unamid soldiers raped women and the mission took no measures to hold them accountable and did not make them leave the country,” Abdullah al-Azraq, under-secretary for the foreign minister, said in a statement to state news agency. SUNA.
He did not elaborate any further and the UN-AU mission did not immediately comment.
The UN mission was set up in 2007 to protect civilians and secure aid to Darfur, which has been wracked by conflict since 2003 when ethnic insurgents rebelled against the government.
