| Joe De Capua, voanews.com, 27th June 2006
 listen
to the interview courtesy of voanews.com
Security continues to worsen in Darfur despite a peace accord on
May 5th. As a result, many people in need are not receiving
humanitarian aid. One of the aid agencies working in Darfur is the
Irish ngo, GOAL. Simon Roughneen is a program manager for the group
in north Darfur state. From the town of Kutum, he spoke to
VOA English to Africa reporter Joe De Capua about the lack of security
there.
“Security has always been pretty precarious in our part of
Darfur as it is for most of the region. But since the signing of
the Darfur peace agreement conditions have actually worsened on
the ground. As you know, the peace agreement was just signed by
one rebel faction. There were two. There are now three.” Two
factions have refused to sign.
Roughneen says, “What that has resulted in is increased tensions
on the ground, particularly between the rival SLA factions over
those who signed the peace deal and those who didn’t. And
that means for us, for an aid agency such as GOAL, we cannot reach
the people we work with in the more outlying, more remote areas
in northern Darfur.”
GOAL provides health, sanitation and nutrition services to more
than 150,000 people in North Darfur camps for the displaced. “We
still can access some of them. There are two large camps outside
the town that we’re based in at the moment and we can get
to those camps. However, they are within a 10-mile radius of the
town. Anything any further out we haven’t been able to access
for the last five weeks. There have been a number of robberies and
carjackings in the area, which have made it unsafe to travel. And
there are reports of ongoing fighting between rival rebel factions,
which makes it difficult for us to get out and help the people,”
he says.
African Union forces are only able to provide limited protection.
Roughneen says, “We see the African Union on the ground here.
You see them on patrol… people in the camps, on the ground,
do not feel safe, anywhere secure based on the protection of the
African Union because the African Union’s under funded and
its mandate is not sufficiently strong enough to enable it to protect
people, even in camps, from the likes of the janjaweed (pro government
militias).
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