U.S. and European media

March 16, 2023

Reuters: Sudan wants aid groups to stop distributing relief. Sudan's president said on Monday he wanted foreign aid groups to stop distributing aid in Sudan within a year, in an escalation in the country's defiant response to an international war crimes warrant against him. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir expelled 13 international aid groups this month, accusing them of helping the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against him, accusing him of orchestrating atrocities in Darfur. Aid groups deny working with the court. In an emotional speech to thousands of soldiers and police, Bashir said he had ordered Sudanese aid groups to take over the distribution of all relief inside the country -- a move that could freeze the work of more than 70 foreign organisations still operating in Darfur and other strife-torn areas. If carried out, the order will also create a dilemma for international donors, including the governments of the United States and Britain, over whether they will be able to continue to pour millions into projects across the underdeveloped country without full control over how their aid is distributed.

Reuters: Kidnapped aid workers freed in Darfur. Three foreign aid workers kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region were freed on Saturday by captors who an official said were protesting over an international arrest warrant against the country's president. The aid workers from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) were seized from their base on Wednesday after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of orchestrating war crimes in Darfur. MSF Belgium's general director Christopher Stokes told a news conference in Brussels MSF had paid no ransom. He said the group was reconsidering its operations at the scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. "We are as a movement...not able today to determine the level at which we are able to maintain our assistance in Darfur. This includes all projects in Darfur," he added.

Reuters: U.N. takes over Chad force amid growing Darfur fears. The United Nations took over command of an EU protection force in eastern Chad on Sunday, and there were growing fears of more rebel violence and the possible arrival of tens of thousands more refugees from Sudan's Darfur. The European Union formally handed over command to the U.N. mission in Chad and Central African Republic (MINURCAT) at a ceremony in Chad's eastern city of Abeche on Sunday morning after Eufor's year-long mandate expired at midnight. The handover, which sees around 5,000 U.N.-commanded troops replace an EU force of close to 3,500, takes place at a time of heightened tension after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant this month against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Agence France-Presse: Radio Dabanga: Dutch lifeline to Darfur refugees. For an hour each morning, two small rooms in central Netherlands become a lifeline for refugees in war-torn Darfur, cut off from the world and massed in dire camps thousands of kilometres away. At 7:30 am Sudanese time (0430 GMT), Radio Dabanga starts broadcasting its daily programme in five local languages to the remote western Sudan region witness to one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies. "Radio is the only way of reaching the people of Darfur," Leon Willems, director of the Dutch non-governmental organisation Press Now behind the initiative, told AFP. "It is what sustains life." Hence the name -- Radio Dabanga, from an Arabic word for a large terracotta pot that holds a family's food reserves.


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].