UNITED NATIONS, June 26: Sudan has lifted a ban it imposed on Sunday on a UN mission working in the violent western Darfur region, a UN spokesman said on Monday. “The Sudanese government decided, effective today, to reverse its decision to suspend UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) activities in Darfur,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The United Nations coordinates one of the world’s largest aid operations in Darfur and monitors the health, malnutrition and human rights situation in a region the size of France.
Sudan suspended the UN operations, excluding the work of the World Food Programme and the UN Children’s Fund, because it said the world body used a helicopter to move Suleiman Adam Jamous, a rebel leader who opposes a recent peace deal.
Dujarric said that Taye Zerihoiun, the deputy special UN envoy for Sudan, had told Mutrif Siddiq, the Sudanese undersecretary for foreign affairs, that the mission was investigating the incident.
Dujarric and other UN spokesmen declined to comment on whether the United Nations had moved Jamous in a helicopter.
UNMIS also has a peacekeeping operation in southern Sudan and an office in Darfur.
After three years of revolt in Sudan’s remote west, tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million forced into camps, creating one of the worst humanitarian crises.
In recent months UN relations with the Sudanese government has been strained as Khartoum fiercely resisted international pressure for a UN takeover of the struggling African Union mission monitoring a shaky truce in Darfur.
Only one of three rebel factions negotiating in the Nigerian capital Abuja signed the African Union-mediated deal and tens of thousands in Darfur have demonstrated, at times violently, against it.—Reuters
