Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
29 June 2004
Nairobi — An international Human rights body has called on US Secretary of State Colin Powell who is traveling to Sudan on Tuesday, June 29, 2004, to warn Sudanese authorities that the international community will protect the civilians in Darfur, if the Sudanese government fails.
Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that Powell should press the Sudanese authorities to reverse this 'ethnic cleansing' and permit full humanitarian access.
"The Sudanese government's campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' in Darfur is the root cause of this humanitarian crisis," said Jemera Rone, Sudan researcher for the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch in a statement to CISA.
Rone lamented that despite hard evidence produced by nutritional surveys and satellite photos, the Sudanese government insists that there is no emergency in Darfur and that the catastrophe is a creation of the international media.
"Only by addressing the human rights crisis can the United States and United Nations hope to solve the humanitarian disaster," Rone said.
On April 8, the Sudanese government signed a ceasefire agreement with the two rebel groups, in which it agreed to "neutralize" the Janjaweed, a militia created and supported by the government, and not to commit acts of violence against the civilian population. It also agreed to permit full humanitarian access.
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