KHARTOUM (AFP) – Sudan has barred aid groups from the huge Kalma refugee camp in Darfur in the wake of clashes between groups for and against the peace process, the United Nations said on Friday.
“No humanitarian (groups) have been allowed to Kalma and Bilal,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesman Sam Hendricks in Khartoum told AFP.
“We have not got access for several days. It’s a serious situation. We are trying to get access and see what is the situation.”
The crisis erupted after deadly fighting last week swept the Kalma and Zalengei camps, strongholds of partisans of the Sudan Liberation Armyof rebel leader Abdelwahid Nur.
Up to eight people were reported killed and more than 20 wounded in the fighting between SLA supporters and partisans of Qatari-hosted peace talks between the rebels and the Khartoum government.
Five Kalma camp leaders whom Khartoum believes were involved in the clashes sought refuge with the hybrid United Nations and African Union mission UNAMID, which is charged with protecting civilians.
A clinic was burned down in the fighting in Kalma, which with 80,000 residents is one of the largest refugee camps in the world.
Twice this week UN aid groups were denied access to Kalma and to the nearby village of Bilal where several Kalma residents had taken refuge.
“Aid groups still await permission to enter the camp,” a UNAMID statement said on Thursday. “The situation remains tense following violence over the weekend.”
South Darfur Governor Abdul Hammid Musa Kasha denied to AFP that aid groups had been denied access to Kalma, but admitted that the situation was tense.
“There was more shooting yesterday (Thursday),” he said.
The Sudanese authorities demanded this week that the peacekeepers hand over five men and a woman from Kalma who had sought UNAMID protection, but Nur, who lives in exile in Paris, warned UNAMID not to do this.
“These people will face death, torture,” he told AFP.
The United Nations says 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been displaced since the Darfurconflict began in 2003. Khartoum says 10,000 have died.
