- Title: SUDAN: UNHCR TALKS ABOUT DARFUR REFUGEES
- Date: 20th August 2004
- Summary: (U6)NYALA, WEST DARFUR, SUDAN (AUGUST 20, 2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS OF UNHCR DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS FOR THE SUDAN, JEAN-MARIE FAKHOURI 0.04 2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) JEAN-MARIE FAKHOURI SAYING: (SOUND QUALITY AS INCOMING) "There's a pressure on them to remain where they are, and whenever there's an attempt to leave that large village
- Embargoed: 4th September 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NYALA,SUDAN
- Country: Sudan
- Reuters ID: LVA2CGBH7FR9BA8YOUHRL2IY6QWE
- Story Text: UNHCR hears from internally displaced persons (IDPs)
in West Darfur that they could flee to Chad if no measures
are taken to make them feel secure in Sudan.
Some 300 internally displaced Sudanese people
representing 30,000 others say they feel insecure inside
Sudan, where they have been the victims of fresh attacks by
Arab militia inside the Darfur region of Sudan.
They spoke to the United Nation High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) director of operations for the Sudan
situation Jean-Marie Fakhouri, who has been visiting Nyala
in the Dafur region of Sudan.
Fakhouri, who visited the Darfur region after five days
in Chad, told Reuters that thousands of displaced people in
Masteri, a large village 50 km south of El Geneina who had
fled attacks on their own small villages earlier this year,
say they are virtual prisoners inside Masteri and that they
are regularly attacked by Janjaweed militiamen.
Fakhouri said the "displaced people said they want
protection from U.N. peacekeepers".
The population, which mainly consists of refugee women
and children, have been gathering at centres where they can
recieve assistance. In Geneina, the women and children have
been receiving some help from the local community.
According to UNHCR, they said they will all cross to
Chad as soon as the rain-swollen river that marks the
border with Sudan dries up.
The current rainy season is seen as a great challenge
to aid agencies, whose workers are sometimes unable to
reach many of the needy displaced people.
The United Nations calls the crisis in Darfur the worst
humanitarian crisis in the world and says 50,000 people
have been killed and at least a million more displaced
since two rebel groups took up arms against the government
in February last year.
Some 155 Rwandan troops have been sent to troubled
Darfur as part of an African Union (AU) force, to hopefully
intervene to protect civilians in danger.
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