Darfur: Red Cross plans massive mercy airlift

The Red Cross is mounting a major airlift of relief supplies to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, in its largest such operation since the Iraq war.

Announcing the plans, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was planning six trips carrying trucks, other equipment and medical supplies by September 5.

“The aim is to improve ICRC access to thousands of people still deprived of urgently-needed humanitarian aid and to provide further supplies to meet vital health and water needs,” the agency said.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s interior minister said yesterday that a ceasefire with rebel factions in Darfur was broken twice on the opening day of peace talks that aimed to bring an end to the crisis.

The United Nations says Darfur is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. More than 30,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million forced to flee their homes in the 18 months of fighting between African rebel groups and Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.

Interior minister Abdel-Rahim Hussein said Monday’s attacks by Sudanese Liberation Army fighters, which left several police injured, did not bode well for peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, which opened the same day. But he insisted the government remained committed to the peace process.

“It still means we continue the talks because we think the only way to reach a solution is through negotiation,” he said after visiting the scene of one attack – a police post responsible for security at Zam Zam refugee camp, 10 miles south of the regional capital, Al-Fasher.

He said the second attack was on a police car near Tawilah, 35 miles west of Al-Fasher.

It was not possible to independently confirm the attacks or the affiliations of the perpetrators. But at Al-Fasher’s military air base two men wearing blue police uniforms, suffering apparent leg injuries, lay on stretchers in a room pockmarked with bullet holes from a rebel attack last year.

The peace talks in Nigeria are a last-minute attempt for progress before Monday’s UN Security Council deadline for Khartoum to disarm the Arab militia accused of terrorising African farmers or face economic and diplomatic sanctions.

Yesterday, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw toured a sprawling desert camp housing 40,000 displaced people and urged the Sudanese government to do more to make it safe for the frightened refugees to return home.

Sudan, which has long denied backing a scorched-earth policy by the Janjaweed to crush the revolt, insists it is working with the international community to ease the crisis and is moving to rein in the Arab militia.