“Darfur is going from bad to worse,” Menegazzo, the apostolic administrator of El Obeid, the Sudanese diocese, which covers Darfur, told Ecumenical News International April 17. “The expelled organizations were coping with at least 40 percent of all the humanitarian help.”
The government had promised to replace the expelled aid organizations with Sudanese ones, said Menegazzo, but he questioned where they would get the funds and the specialized people to do so. Al-Bashir expelled the agencies soon after International Criminal Court indicted him on charges of crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.
“The existing organizations have no strength, the means, and they have requested specialized people to fill the gap,” said the bishop.
Sudan has alleged that some of the aid agencies harmed its security by providing information to the ICC. On April 15, Oxfam, one of the expelled aid agencies, submitted a formal appeal against its ejection, and expressed concern over allegations it acted outside the humanitarian mandate.
“We have already been told that water pumps in some Darfur camps have stopped pumping, and there are growing fears about the potential for outbreaks of disease. The expulsion is already affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of the very poorest and most vulnerable Sudanese people,” said Penny Lawrence, Oxfam’s international director in a statement.
“Certainly the policy of the president of the Sudan is not accepted by all, surely not by the Darfurians and many others,” said Menegazzo in a telephone interview.
