INSIDE DARFUR:THE SUDANESE government yesterday began ordering aid agencies to leave the country, leaving millions of people without aid in Darfur.
Officials began phoning charities at 4.05pm local time, seconds after the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced it had issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. They were told their registration in the country was cancelled with immediate effect.
The charities expelled include Oxfam, Care International and Action Contre la Faim – all seen as “big hitters”. Staff will begin leaving the country today.
“We didn’t know how the government was going to react,” said a western diplomatic source. “This is one of our worst-case scenarios.”
Aid organisations have long had a difficult relationship with Khartoum, which regularly denies visas for staff or closes off areas where it is conducting military operations.
However, the humanitarian operation was one of the few successes in Darfur, helping care for more than four million people.
Penny Lawrence, Oxfam’s international director, said the charity would appeal the decision.
“If Oxfam’s registration is revoked, it will affect more than 600,000 Sudanese people whom we provide with vital humanitarian and development aid, including clean water and sanitation on a daily basis. Four hundred thousand of them are affected by the ongoing conflict in Darfur – where people continue to flee from violence and the humanitarian needs remain enormous. It will also affect another 200,000 poor people in the east of the country and Khartoum state.”
An aid official said the move would have a catastrophic impact in areas where charities were distributing food and medicine. “The largest aid operation in the world hinges on the NGOs. Asking 10 of them to leave will seriously compromise its effectiveness.”
Yesterday the Times revealed that six agencies had been asked to leave key sites in Darfur. Today they were ordered out of the country.
The other agencies are CHF, Solidarités, MSF-Holland, Save the Children UK (which was not operating in Darfur), the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the International Rescue Committee.
Earlier yesterday, a chilling display of Sudan’s war machine was on display following the ICC’s announcement. Tanks, trucks and warplanes came with a simple message: Bashir is still in charge.
First came the armoured personnel carriers, soldiers hanging from gun turrets and door handles; then came pick-ups armed with heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons. And behind them were the trucks crammed with gunmen, some wearing balaclavas, others with scarves wrapped around their faces – all shouting “Allahu Akhbar” (“God is great”).
“This is to show that the government is still in control of the town and if any of the rebel movements think they can try something then they should think again,” said Elesail Abdul Munim.
The show of strength brought huge cheers from curious onlookers who gathered in the market.
A show of rhetoric came later. Speaker after speaker addressed a crowd of about 2,000 in the town centre as part of a government rally. They were greeted with clenched fists and cries of “Jihad, Jihad, Jihad”.
There were similar scenes in the capital, Khartoum. Banner-waving crowds massed on the banks of the Nile, chanting, “We love you president Bashir”, and trampling on portraits of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC’s chief prosecutor.
Yet there was something lacklustre about the speeches of support. The defiance was expected, a necessary testing of the water, without getting out of hand.
It allows the government to cite public anger with the ICC as it fights the allegations but also keeps its options open.
Diplomats in Khartoum say it will take weeks if not months to see how the regime reacts, whether it tries to clean up its act or glories in its status of pariah.