Following an announcement from Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir that all foreign aid agencies working in the country would soon be ousted from Sudan, a Sudanese staffer working for a Canadian relief group was shot dead in Darfur. After the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands charged Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity on March 4, his Khartoum government expelled 13 international aid agencies and revoked the permits of three organizations in the country. Bashir -- the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes by the court -- has continued to say that humanitarian efforts in the country should be “Sudanized.”
“Within a year, we don't want to see any foreign aid group dealing with a Sudanese citizen,” he said at a rally a week after his arrest warrant was issued.
Following Bashir’s actions, the United Nations issued a report stating that “more than one million people in Darfur are at risk of losing food, water and shelter in coming months because of the expulsion of international aid groups by Sudan's government.” “As the rainy season arrives within the next two months,” one relief agency explained, “people living in weak temporary shelters, in flood-prone locations where latrines can fill and overflow, will become at extreme risk of disease and death.”
Quite plainly, it is a crisis that demands immediate international attention.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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