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Sudan faults U.N on Darfur death toll
REFUTING the position of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the number of people that have died since March in refuge camps in Western Darfur province, a Sudanese Minister, Mohammed Yusuf Ibrahim has put the number at 7000.
Ibrahim, State Minister at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs made this clarification yesterday in reaction to WHO's allegation on Friday that 70,000 had died in the camps, mostly because of poor conditions. The number does not include those killed in fighting or militia and government attacks on villages or on fleeing refugees.
Disputing the 70,000 estimate, Ibrahim said: "This report is totally wrong and not correct at all".
He said the real number was less than 10 percent of that number as estimated by the United Nations (U.N) health agency. He also cited Sudanese government reports.
"The reports we have here speak of the situation for the last 32 weeks and nowhere could we see what they were talking about," he said. He would not elaborate on the government reports or give more specific numbers.
Meanwhile, Libya confirmed yesterday that leaders of Sudan, Egypt, Chad and Nigeria would join Moammar Gadhafi in Tripoli on yesterday to discuss the Darfur crisis. The summit will deal with security and seek ways of ending the fighting and getting aid to displaced people, Libya's Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam said at the weekend.
Dr. David Nabarro, WHO's head of crisis operations, warned at the weekend that refugees would continue to die unless countries provide more money to help them.
"We are running on a threadbare, hand-to-mouth existence, and if the plight of these people in Darfur is as important to the international community as it seems to be, then we would have expected more long-term support," he said.
According to him, the United Nations has only received half of the $300 million that it needs to do its work.
Sudan's government is accused of using Arab militias to put down a 19-month rebellion by non-Arab African groups in Darfur. The government denies supporting the militias and has dismissed the reported death tolls as exaggerated.
The only death toll it has provided came last month, when it said around 200 of its policemen were killed in the fighting.
Rwanda said it would delay sending about 300 peacekeeping troops to Darfur by about a week because preparations had not been made to house the soldiers.
The 300 Rwandan troops had been scheduled to arrive yesterday, but will probably leave next weekend, Foreign Minister Charles Muligande said
Altogether, Rwanda is expected to send about 1,000 fresh troops to Darfur, in addition to more than 150 soldiers deployed there in August, said Lt. Gen. Charles Kayonga, the army chief.
The fresh troops will make up a battalion of a 4,500-soldier contingent to be deployed in Darfur by the African Union by the end of next month.
Nigeria is sending another of the force's five battalions by October 30, the country said on Friday. There was no word however, on which other African countries would provide troops for the remaining three battalions, which are expected to be on the ground in Sudan by the end of November.
A delegation of the smaller of Darfur's two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement, traveled to Tripoli but will not be allowed to participate in the meeting, which is only for heads of state, a Libyan foreign ministry official disclosed on the condition of anonymity.
The larger rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army, indicated it would not attend the summit, although it said it had been invited.
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