Top UN envoy visits South Darfur

UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, visited the south of the strife-torn Darfur region to meet humanitarian workers and local officials, a UN spokesman said Friday.

The top UN envoy will also inspect a camp for internally displaced persons there, spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters in New York.

"He met with the state Governor in Nyala and then went to Kalmacamp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) where he is meeting with humanitarian workers," Eckhard said.

Nyala and the surrounding area, including Kalma camp, are among the areas the Government of Sudan is to make safe and secure by the end of August in accordance with the Darfur Plan of Action, according to the spokesman.

Pronk's trip to Darfur follows his meeting in Khartoum of the Joint Implementation Mechanism, the body set up by the world body and the Sudanese Government to make sure both sides meet commitments pledged in a joint communique on July 3.

On the humanitarian side, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), reported that the continuing insecurity in Darfur could drive some 30,000 people into Chad, a new influx that could strain the agency's ability to care for the refugees in its swelling camps, Eckhard said.

According to a UNHCR spokesman, representatives of some 30,000 displaced persons in Masteri, a large village in West Darfur told a UNHCR team that if they do not get international security guarantees, they will all cross to Chad as soon as the rain-swollen river that marks the border with Sudan dries up.

Source: Xinhua