by Jim Watson
ABU SHOUK CAMP, Sudan, Aug 24 (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged the Sudanese government Tuesday to make a "real effort" to ease the suffering caused by its bloody clampdown in Darfur, as he visited some of million-plus people who have been displaced.
Straw said the authorities had made some advances in opening up the region to relief agencies and providing protection from the Arab militias it sponsored to crush ethnic minority rebels, but said more needed to be done.
"It is a terrible humanitarian crisis...we have got to deal with it," Straw told reporters in Khartoum following his visit to North Darfur, where he toured a camp for persons displaced by the 18-month conflict between government forces and their militia allies, and rebel fighters.
"Nobody could visit Sudan without being struck by the scale and complexity of the problems which face this country," said the British foreign secretary.
He added that during his encouter with some of the displaced people at the Abu Shouk camp that he visited, he "got from them a sense of their fear as a result of what happened to them and their families".
International human rights watchdogs say the majority of the displaced were exposed to various forms of abuse before fleeing their homes, particularly by the pro-government Janjaweed Arab militias.
However, Straw pointed out that conditions within the Abu Shouk camp appeared to be better compared to other camps scattered across Darfur.
It was "one of the best organized and run camps in the whole of Darfur", he noted, adding that "there was rudimentary but evidently good health care".
Earlier, he said: "I knew the numbers, but it is one thing to know the numbers, it is quite another thing to come here, to survey this camp, and to realise that there are more than 50,000 people here but that is only one 20th of the people displaced as a result of the conflict.
"I think that the government of Sudan has made progress in some fields. Humanitarian access is much better. Security within the camps is better.
"But there is a very great deal to be done before these and 1.2 million like them feel reassured enough to go back to their villages.
"That requires a real effort by the government of Sudan to provide for their safety and also to ensure that there is progress in the peace talks."
Negotiations in the Nigerian capital of Abuja with representatives of the two Darfur rebel groups went into a second day Tuesday with the rebels voicing pessimism about Khartoum`s readiness to open up to the non-Arab minorities, who together make up nearly half of Sudan`s population.
Straw said the bombing of ethnic minority villages by the Sudanese air force which had marked the first 18 months of the civil war in Darfur now appeared to have ceased.
Whoops of delight greeted the British minister as he arrived at the spartan but well organized camp, an AFP correspondent said.
Last month, the UN Security Council gave Khartoum until this Sunday to disarm the militias and provide the necessary conditions for the displaced to return to their homes, or face international action.
Straw, who later returned to Khartoum for talks with President Omar al-Beshir, said he intended to "make an assessment myself and to report back ... to my Security Council colleagues, but particularly to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan...
"It will be Kofi Annan`s report to the Security Council at the end of this week which will be crucial in determining whether the government of Sudan has done enough to meet the obligations imposed on it by the resolution."
Straw said Khartoum should not be penalised if all the conditions set by the Council had not been met by Sunday`s deadline.
"The issue is not whether everything has been resolved by the 30-day period set by the Security Council, but whether the government of Sudan are on track to do that and also whether the rebel groups, some of which are supported by other countries, are meeting their obligations."
He denied that that constituted a climbdown by the international community after the talk of military intervention of recent months. "No-one is going soft on anything," he insisted. "This is a very imperfect situation."