Darfur crisis overshadows Sudan aid conference
"Participants at this conference have pledged $4.5bn for 2005-07," Norwegian Development Minister Hilde Frafjord Johnson told delegates at the end of a two-day conference in Oslo attended by 60 nations.
The final total was up from a figure of $2.6bn (€2bn) Ms Johnson had given earlier in the day.
She said the pledges exceeded a combined $3.6bn (€2.8bn) aid request for 2005-07. The UN says it needs $1bn (€775 million) for 2005.
"That's worth an applause already," Ms Johnson said.
Aid is needed to stave off hunger and help build schools, roads and hospitals after the 21-year war.
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said Washington aimed to give $1-$2bn but the aid hinged on Sudan bolstering the January North-South peace deal and on work to end the conflict in Darfur.
"There is a chance to save this country," he said.
But he warned there was a risk of a downward spiral.
"The violence and atrocities in Darfur cast a dangerous shadow over our world," he said.
He told Khartoum and others to work to halt atrocities in Darfur, allow better access for aid workers and do more to seek peace.
Otherwise, "my country and others will not be able to sustain the (North-South accord) fully and Sudan could slip back into the depths".
On Monday, Sudan's First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha said Khartoum had a "total commitment" to a search for peace with anti-government rebels in Darfur.
Among aid pledges made on Monday, the European Commission promised €594m, Britain €438m, Norway €194m and the Netherlands €170m.
Ireland pledged €15m.
A report by the UN and World Bank, backed by the Khartoum government and the ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), said Sudan needs €2bn in aid from July 2005 to the end of 2007.
Some of the cash was promised to immediate humanitarian needs in 2005 or for longer-term projects.
More than two million people were killed and four million displaced by the war that pitted the mainly animist and Christian south against the Arab north in a conflict complicated by oil, ethnicity and ideology.
In Darfur, rebels took up arms against the government in February 2003 over power and resources in the region. Khartoum retaliated by arming nomadic Arab militia, who are accused of a campaign of murder, rape and arson against villagers.
More than two million people have fled their homes and tens of thousands have died in the Darfur conflict, which Washington branded genocide - a term Khartoum rejects. Mr Zoellick did not use the word 'genocide' yesterday.
Under the peace deal, Khartoum and the SPLM will set up a coalition government, decentralise power, share oil revenues and form joint military units.
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