Darfur relief operations hampered as 20 UNHCR staff expelled

The Sudan government has expelled 20 members of staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “compromising the ability of the refugee agency to effectively undertake its work in Darfur”. Agency spokesperson Melissa Fleming confirmed at a UN briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that “of the 37 UNHCR international staff based in Darfur, only 17 currently have valid permits to continue their work”. Fleming confirmed: “Permits in the other 20 cases have not been renewed, despite extended follow-up by UNHCR with the relevant government authorities, forcing us to scale down our operations. “This has particularly affected our work in North Darfur. None of our international staff based in El Fasher have been granted permits to return, with the last remaining staff having been asked to leave at short notice in early July. The result is that for over a month, UNHCR has been unable to effectively undertake protection and assistance activities for displaced persons in North Darfur,” Fleming said. She added that the decision not to renew the work permits is thought to have been taken at national government level in Khartoum, rather than by local officials. The expulsions also do not appear to be related to the workers’ nationalities. Fleming: “UNHCR is calling on the Government of Sudan to renew the work permits for all our international staff based in Darfur so as to enable us to fully resume protection and assistance to hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians in need.” Sudan representatives In a joint statement the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Ali Al Zatari, and the Representative of the UNHCR in Sudan, Kai Nielsen, express “regret that humanitarian activities for internally displaced persons in Darfur have had to be scaled down as a result of the non-renewal by the relevant Government authorities of permits for most of UNHCR’s international staff working in Darfur.” In their statement, they “call on the Government of Sudan to renew the permits for all the UNHCR staff so as to allow UNHCR to fully resume its activities in Darfur”. According to Reuters, other UN agencies such as Unicef and the World Food Programme have not had any problem with renewing work permits. Two million displaced At her Geneva briefing, Fleming pointed out that there are currently some two million internally displaced people in Darfur, of whom 1.2 million live in camps. “There have been almost 300,000 newly displaced persons this year alone, including a third of them within and from North Darfur.” Fleming said that the humanitarian situation in Darfur remains critical both for the long-term displaced and for those who have been newly displaced as a result of recent fighting. “The inability of agency to continue implementing its activities will directly impact projects related to health, education, basic services and livelihoods, the provision of emergency shelter and non-food items, and on the verification of returnees.” Emergency relief In addition to providing emergency relief items to the newly displaced, “the agency supports durable solutions for the displaced in close collaboration with government and other humanitarian partners”. Fleming: “We have recently distributed relief items such as sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets, jerry cans, plastic sheeting and kitchen utensils to some 75,000 newly displaced in North Darfur, 140,000 in South and East Darfur and 15,000 in West and Central Darfur.” She highlighted “UNHCR also regularly undertakes return verification missions across the five States in Darfur. To date, the agency has verified a total of some 280,000 displaced and refugee returns to Darfur since 1 January 2011.” Fleming said there are also some 34,000 refugees in the region, mainly in West Darfur, who are not impacted by the non-renewal of the work permits.File photo: In an earlier repatriation operation, displaced Darfuris board busses provided by UNHCR (Albert González Farran/Unamid)Related: ‘Five million people displaced in Sudan in 2012’: UNHCR report (20 June 2013) UNHCR ‘completes move of Darfuris from Chad border’ (14 June 2013)