UN coordinator "cautiously optimistic" on Darfur

Nairobi/El Fasher, Sudan - The UN's coordinator for emergency relief, John Holmes, said Sunday he was 'cautiously optimistic' about the plight of the people of Darfur, western Sudan. Speaking to the BBC on a visit to the region two months after Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir expelled 13 international aid agencies in retaliation for his indictment on war crimes by the International Criminal Court, Holmes said there were now signs of 'greater flexibility' from the government in Khartoum. However, this year alone has seen 40,000 displaced persons reach refugee camps as they escaped the fighting in Darfur. But Holmes told the British broadcaster there was no hard evidence that any more people had died because of the disruption in the aid effort than would have died anyway. 'Most of the life-saving gaps have been met,' he added, saying that the UN and Sudanese government had made up some of the shortfall in help. 'I think most of the life-saving gaps have been met but, of course, some services have been reduced in some places so you can't exclude that there have been extra deaths. But we have no evidence of that at the moment,' Holmes told the BBC.

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Ahmed AbdallaMay 11th, 2009 - 07:16:04

It is interesting how the Western media in this case exemplified by the BBC continue to portray the conflict in Darfur. Whatever positive steps by the government are mentioned with suspicion and hardly any appreciation. The 40 thousand newly displaced people are in this situation due to fighting between the rebels in Northern Darfur. This is 'innocently' ignored by the report.The expulsion of a number of aid agencies is said to be a 'retaliation' by president Bashir and no mention is made of the reason given by the Sudanese government for the move namely that these organizations have taken it on themselves to propagate the popular lies about darfur a task hardly in line with their mission.

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