| Series Title | European Voice |
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| Series Details | Vol.10, No.18, 20.5.04 |
| Publication Date | 20/05/2004 |
| Content Type | News |
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Date: 20/05/04 ECHO, the European Commission's humanitarian office, has encountered lengthy delays in obtaining the necessary permits to enter the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan. Peter Holdsworth, a long-standing aid worker based in ECHO's Nairobi delegation, had to wait almost three weeks before he was issued the visa he needed to undertake an emergency mission to assess the plight of those living in the western Sudanese province. After finally obtaining the visa, he is in Darfur this week. The delay was despite an official undertaking by the Khartoum authorities that they would complete the processing of visa requests for humanitarian purposes within 48 hours. The Commission recently announced a €10 million aid package to deal with the effects of the Darfur crisis, recognized by the UN as the worst conflict-driven humanitarian disaster of the year so far. ECHO sources fear the already precarious situation there could transform into a famine of the horrific scale witnessed in neighbouring Ethiopia during the 1980s. The situation has been exacerbated by the deliberate targeting of food stores and water supplies by government-linked forces. Most experts fear "there is going to be a massive food crisis", said one ECHO official. War broke out in Darfur early last year when two guerrilla groups attacked military installations. As a result of the fighting, up to one million people have been uprooted within Sudan. The European Commission is extremely concerned about the escalating humanitarian crisis in the Greater Darfur region of Sudan, where a violent conflict has been raging since early 2003. |
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| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Countries / Regions | Africa |
