A civilian employee of the UN peacekeeping mission to Darfur has been abducted by armed men in El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The kidnapping ocurred just hours after a UN Security Council mission arrived in the area, 7 October. Sudanese armed forces began a hunt for the kidnapped man.
Armed men entered the residence of the kidnapping victim, tied up two of his colleagues and drove off with him and another colleague, who managed to escape. The UN has not released details of the victim. Kidnappings, often for ransom, have increased since Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, was issued an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
The region has seen increased heavy fighting in the past week and a half.
Links to other sites:AFP, Al-Jazeera, BBC, IOL.com
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A French agronomist working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Chad was abducted Tuesday 10 November near village of Kawa, eastern Chad, where ICRC has a primary health care assistance programme. The ICRC says Laurent Maurice was taken by several armed men, but does not know their motives nor their identities.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva will reopen a debate Thursday 15 October on the conduct of both sides in last winter’s brief war in Gaza, Palestine, between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza strip’s political authority. A report by former South African judge Richard Goldstone suggests both armed groups may have committed war crimes. It recommends that they conduct their own impartial investigations within six months or have the case referred to the International Criminal Court. A call by Libya for the UN in New York to take up the report by strongly rebuffed by Israel which said late Wednesday 14 October that as long as the report is “on the table” there can be no peace negotiations with Palestine.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), the nominal representative of the Palestinians, initially asked for the debate on the report to be deferred, but it came under sharp criticism from Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza strip since elections in 2007 forced out Fatah and the PA.
The government of Sudan says it will allow new aid organizations into the country to work in the Darfur region and that existing organizations can expand their activities in the area. The government expelled 13 NGOs and restricted access to Darfur after the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president in March. Some 4.7 million people in the Darfur region rely on humanitarian aid. The UN says the 10 year conflict has caused 300’000 deaths and has displaced some 3 million persons. AllAfrica, BBC, Reuters
John Holmes, the United Nations’ chief humanitarian coordinator said Monday that a joint UN-Sudan assessment shows that one million people are likely to soon be without shelter or food and water in the near future, due to the expulsion of several aid groups, following an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Sudan’s president. CCN
