U.S. and European Media

August 24, 2023

Associated Press: Group: Sudan Violating U.N. Arms Embargo. A human rights group said Thursday that Sudan's government continues to violate a U.N. arms embargo in Darfur and urged the United Nations to give its planned peacekeeping force for the region the authority to confiscate weapons from combatants. In its latest report on Darfur, the London-based Amnesty International published photographs it said were obtained from credible witnesses supporting the claim of arms embargo violations. The photographs were taken in July and purportedly show military shipments at the Sudanese army airport in the West Darfur state capital of El Geneina, the group said. One photograph shows Sudanese soldiers moving containers from an Antonov cargo plane onto military trucks and two others show Russian-supplied Mi-7 and Mi-24 attack helicopters at the airport, Amnesty said. ''Sudan flaunts its impudence of the U.N. arms embargo and peace agreements by persisting to send arms into Darfur,'' said Larry Cox, the group's director in the United States. In 2005, the U.N. Security Council imposed a wide arms embargo on all parties in the conflict in Darfur, including the Sudanese government. It was a follow-up on a previous 2004 embargo that also included the government-armed janjaweed militia.

Reuters: Sudan Tells EU And Canadian Envoys to Leave. Sudan has expelled the European Union and Canadian envoys from the war-torn African country, state radio and Western officials said on Thursday. The Sudanese Foreign Ministry had declared them persona non grata "for involving themselves in activities that constitute an interference in the internal affairs of the country," Sudan radio reported, according to BBC monitoring. The EU Commission said its ambassador, Kent Degerfelt, had been ordered out, and the Canadian government said its charge d'affaires, Nuala Lawlor, had also been asked to leave. Degerfelt was on holiday in Italy at the time. "I have been in Sudan for five years and I have always worked for the good of Sudan and its people and that is why I believe that maybe there is some sort of misunderstanding somewhere," he told Reuters. Diplomats in Khartoum said both missions had been working on human rights issues. Sudan has been widely criticized for its counterinsurgency campaign in the western Darfur region. Sudan has a history of difficult relations with Western diplomats, whom it sometimes accuses of meddling with the country's internal affairs. Last year, it expelled Jan Pronk, the head of the U.N. mission in Sudan.

Associated Press: Sudan calls U.N. report on rapes in Darfur untrue. Sudan: Sudan's justice minister lashed out Thursday at a new United Nations report on rapes in Darfur said to be carried out by soldiers and government militia, calling the organization's work untrue and irresponsible. The office of Louise Arbour, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, released the write-up Tuesday, claiming the abuses may constitute war crimes. "This is a false report and it is clear to us that the human rights commissioner does not care about her credibility," Sudanese Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told The Associated Press on Thursday. Al-Mardi criticized the U.N. for impugning his country's reputation, saying "we no longer care for such reports that target Sudan and that lack credibility and responsibility." He explicitly denied government soldiers had committed atrocities in Darfur and claimed the situation in Sudan's war-torn western region had improved.

---------------------

The Darfur Daily News is a service of the Save Darfur Coalition.  To subscribe to the Daily News, please email [email protected]. For media inquiries, please contact Ashley Roberts at (202) 478-6181, or [email protected].