Sudan govt, rebels agree to send international observers to Darfur

May 29th, 2004.

NAIROBI, May 29, 2004 (dpa) -- Sudan's government and two rebel groups signed an agreement Friday that will allow international military observers to monitor a ceasefire and investigate human rights abuses in the western Darfur region, which has been torn by civil war.

Beginning Wednesday, 60 observers from several African countries will be deployed in Darfur, according to the agreement, which was signed in Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union.

Both sides have accused the other in recent weeks of violating a ceasefire agreed upon in April.

The region has seen bloody fighting that has left villages decimated and infrastructure destroyed. Villagers have been slaughtered, women and children kidnapped and towns burned to the ground, prompting their neighbours to flee.

International aid groups said government-aligned Arab militia groups have driven more than 1 million blacks from Darfur and killed 30,000. At least 140,000 refugees have crossed the border into neighbouring Chad, the United Nations said. Other organizations put their number at 200,000.

Aid organizations renewed their urgent appeals for donations for Darfur.

"The refugee catastrophe in Sudan is now the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world," Clemens Graf von Waldburg- Zeil, secretary general of the German Red Cross, said in Berlin.

He said the Red Cross needs immediate aid of about 60 million dollars.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the situation is dire and that the focus must be on getting humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousand of people.

"Right now, my focus has been on working with the Sudanese government to get access to the region," Powell told reporters. "We can worry about the political aspects of this a little later, but my focus is on the needs of the people right now."

The approaching rainy season is making the need for aid even more urgent, according to UNICEF. The heavy precipitation will soon make roads unpassable and could cause the outbreak of epidemics, the U.N. agency said.