SOS Children not one of those ordered to leave Sudan

Fears are growing for the safety of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Darfur after Sudan decided to expel more than a dozen aid agencies. SOS Children, however, is not one of those ordered to leave, recognizing our permanent presence and apparently because our national association in Sudan is run by our Sudanese nationals, not expatriates.

The selected charities were ordered to leave the country after President Oman al-Bashir reacted angrily to the International Criminal Court's call on Wednesday for his arrest on war crimes charges. Contraversially, the ICC has charged him with crimes against humanity after the civil war that has killed 300,000 people.

The United Nations Security Council is meeting today (Friday) to discuss the situation on the ground in Darfur, where some 4.7 million people depend on aid. A Libyan diplomat told Reuters news agency he will raise requests to discuss suspending the International Criminal Court's proceedings against the Sudanese President. But Western diplomats said the 15-member council was not expected to take any action.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said yesterday that aid operations in Darfur would be "irrevocably damaged" by the move. "These agencies are key to maintaining a lifeline to 4.7 million Sudanese people who receive aid in Darfur," he said, adding that he "appeals to the government of Sudan to urgently reconsider the above decision."

Some aid workers were being harassed and detained by Sudanese security forces, following the arrest order for Bashir, deputy UN humanitarian chief Catherine Bragg said.
"We have reports of a number of international staff of NGOs who were detained for up to four hours," she said.

Ban also said that "the confiscation of equipment, money and other materials (from aid workers) is unacceptable and must end immediately."

Aid officials warn that that the emergency is in danger of becoming a disaster. The move has put the supply of food to 1.1 million people in doubt, as the UN’s World Food Programme scrambles to find lorries to deliver sacks of grain. It had been using four of the expelled charities to get food to people in need.