Eight Sudanese aid workers are reported to have been kidnapped in Darfur, as a deadline expires for the UN to hear how Sudan is tackling violence there. The Sudan government said rebels abducted the Sudanese nationals who were working for international groups. UN officials are set to issue findings on efforts to stop the attacks that have exacerbated a humanitarian crisis. The UN Security Council will meet on Thursday to discuss whether to take action against the Sudanese government. The UN had threatened action if Sudan did not take steps by 30 August to improve the security situation in the western region of Darfur and to rein in the militias, blamed for killing civilians. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is expected to decide on Tuesday whether the Sudanese government is complying with those demands.
More than one million black Africans in Darfur have been driven from their homes, primarily by the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militia. Sudan's government denies being in control of the Janjaweed and President Omar al-Bashir has called them "friends and comrades" "thieves and gangsters". The BBC's Hilary Andersson in southern Darfur says large parts of the region remain insecure for displaced civilians. It was in southern Darfur that the aid workers were last seen. Three of them are from UN's World Food Programme and five of them from the Sudanese Red Crescent. The BBC's Stephen Gibbs at the UN in New York says it seems likely that the UN will conclude that Sudan has gone some way - but not far enough - to alleviate this crisis.
| Could have maild that guess in from London. |
The threat of sanctions appears to be dimming, he adds.
| Who besides the US/UK threatened sanctions? |
The Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said he hoped the Security Council would come to a "reasonable decision". "We wish the relationship between Sudan and the Security Council will not be in the way of confrontation," he told Associated Press television in an interview. |