U.N. Says Sudan Denying Refugees Access to Aid

Sudanese soldiers and police surrounded several refugee camps in the war-torn region of Darfur on Tuesday and denied access to humanitarian groups, the United Nations said.

The U.N. World Food Program said several camps were surrounded, apparently in retaliation for the abduction of 18 ethnic Arabs by Darfur rebels. The world body also said it pulled 88 relief workers from areas where violence had increased in recent days.

The WFP fears that the government may start forcing people from the camps back to their villages, where there is less protection from the pro-government militias, known as janjaweed, that have been attacking towns, said spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume.

The camps near the southern Darfur city of Nyala were cut off “at 3 a.m. without any warning,” she said. “Agencies have been denied access to these camps since this morning.”

At least 160,000 refugees cannot be reached by road “because of insecurity,” Berthiaume said.

In New York, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the world body had received reports that Sudanese authorities surrounded at least two refugee camps in Nyala early Tuesday and used 15 trucks to relocate people to an area north of the town.

Sudanese officials sent conflicting messages about the situation. Agriculture Minister Majzoub Khalifa said the army was protecting the camps from possible retaliation attacks after the kidnapping of 18 Arabs.

He said Arab tribal leaders had told African Union troops, who were in Sudan to monitor a shaky cease-fire, that if the rebels did not release the hostages, they would be freed by force. “The army has strengthened its presence around the camps to protect the refugees from retaliation,” Khalifa said in Abuja, Nigeria, where the government was holding talks with rebel groups.

But Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ibrahim Hamid said “there is no siege.”

He said angry Arab tribesmen gathered in the area after the kidnapping. “The African Union has been alerted, and they said they would bring those abducted out of the mountainous areas,” he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the Bush administration was “outraged” by the reports that the camps had been cut off from aid. “We call on the government of Sudan to cease any attempt to relocate people against their will and to allow immediate access to humanitarian workers,” he said.