SUDAN: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits Sudan to press for a peacekeeping force in Darfur

Record ID: 345204

  • Title: SUDAN: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits Sudan to press for a peacekeeping force in Darfur
  • Date: 4th September 2007
  • Summary: WIDE OF DISPLaCED WOMEN AT WATER POINT WITH JERRICANS CLOSE UP OF RUNNING WATER
  • Embargoed: 19th September 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sudan
  • Country: Sudan
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA57VW50TVRAWSCXNJ0DP2FYSYP
  • Story Text: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits Sudan to press for a peacekeeping force in Darfur. Ban's visit comes as violence resurgences in Darfur and displaced people in the war torn region struggle to survive.
    United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Sudan on Monday (September 3) to press for the rapid deployment of a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur and quick start new peace talks to end the four-year regional conflict.
    International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur.
    Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict, which flared when rebel groups took up arms against the government, charging it with neglect, at 9,000.
    Ban's trip comes against a background of a resurgence of violence in Darfur -- denounced as "simply unacceptable" by Ban -- between government and pro-government forces and rebel groups, and what U.N. officials say is worsening malnutrition.
    As he began his visit, the realities on the ground for Darfurians who've suffered for four and a half years of fighting continues to bite.
    At one of the camps the UN chief will be visiting, El Salaam, water provision is one of the problems Ban Ki-moon will witness at first hand.
    Families can spend hours queueing to get one container of water. With more than 34,000 internally displaced people living in the camp, essential resources like water, food, and security in the war torn region remain top priority.
    One woman in the water queue, Ankarif Abdulla, said: "The water problem is very difficult. Sometimes we have to share the little that we get with those without. If the following day they get water, then they will share with us too. The families have become larger and water is little and it's difficult to manage without it."
    The United Nations have embarked on a huge construction of offices and a logistic centre with the area expected to be up and running in the near future.
    The peacekeeping force Ban Ki-Moon is pressing for would comprise troops and police from UN and the Africa Union, a large force hoping to quell the killings, looting and insecurity in the region.
    But water shortages remain a major concern.
    The UN's deputy representative for the UN and Africa Union (UNAMID), Henry Anyidoho, spoke after inspecting the construction site.
    "Our worry has been that if water has always been a major problem here, if the United Nations is coming to add up to the African Union for us to bring peace here, then we should not drain away the water resources from the population," he said.
    The United nations have sent water engineers recently to survey the region. Other agencies like UNICEF have also carried out their own water surveys to find a solution.
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