Attacks on Darfur aid workers' compounds in Gereida town have forced the evacuation of 71 staff and severely restricted humanitarian aid reaching the region's largest population of war victims, officials said today.
Around 20 armed men launched a coordinated attack in the South Darfur town on Monday night, seizing a dozen vehicles and communications equipment and almost paralysing aid operations.
It was the biggest single attack on the Darfur aid operation, the world's largest, since it began helping 3 million victims of the conflict in remote western Sudan in early 2004.
"It's massive and hugely destructive and has severely disrupted aid operations," said Alun McDonald, spokesman for the British aid organisation Oxfam, which had five vehicles stolen and whose compound was fired on during the attack. The 71 aid workers were evacuated yesterday.
It was not clear who carried out the attacks in Gereida, its population swollen by 130,000 refugees from nearby villages. But the well-organised attackers knew how many vehicles the aid groups had and threatened and harassed staff. The Gereida area is controlled by the one rebel faction that signed a May peace deal with the government.
UN humanitarian coordinator Manuel Aranda Da Silva said in a statement: "How can we be expected to carry out humanitarian work without vehicles to get to camps, phones to communicate and the constant threat to their own physical safety?"
The Darfur conflict began when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in 2003, accusing Khartoum of marginalising the arid region. Militia, which the international community says the government mobilised to quell the revolt, are accused of pillage and murder.
Washington has called the conflict genocide, but Sudan denies this, saying it is fighting a guerrilla insurgency. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating alleged war crimes in the region, where experts estimate 200,000 have been killed, a figure Khartoum disputes.