Aid deliveries restored to refugees

Sudanese authorities have restored aid deliveries to a camp for 90,000 displaced people in Darfur, UN officials said, three days after soldiers reportedly closed the camp following a mob killing of an alleged pro-government militiaman.

More than 400 Sudanese fled Darfur to Chad during the weekend, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ spokesman for east Chad said.

Eduardo Cue said: “What the refugees are telling us (is that) some had crossed back to Darfur and then have come back again because they have basically lost hope in the peace process.”

The top UN envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, told government officials that he was concerned about the fact that “the Janjaweed militia was still active and continued to be a threat”, a spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Sudan said.

The pro-government Arab militia has been accused of waging a brutal campaign to drive African Sudanese out of Darfur province. More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes since African rebels rose against the government in February 2003.

The government denies backing the Janjaweed.

Pronk met Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail for a meeting of the joint UN-Sudan committee that is supposed to oversee implementation of an agreed plan to restore peace to Darfur in 30 days.