Written by: Beck

Wow, things were looking up in Darfur for, what, two days solid? I think that must be a new record for UN negotiated peace settlements. Although really, it shouldn't be called a "peace settlement" as that would suggest that two sides were warring on each other. What do you call it when one side agrees to stop slaughtering a bunch of starving civilians?

Anyway, things are looking like business as usual in Darfur. Aid workers are being obstructed. Displaced persons are being, well, displaced. And the defenseless continue to die (remind me never to be a defenseless person. Doesn't seem like there's much of a future in it).

The United Nations refugee agency said Thursday it is pulling staff out of part of Sudan's conflict-ravaged Darfur region to protest government restrictions on the aid workers.

Jean-Marie Fakhouri, Darfur chief for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the agency decided to act because Sudanese officials have barred its aid workers from leaving Nyala, in southern Darfur, since Oct. 20.

[...] Sudan's government imposed the travel ban after an Oct. 20 incident in which UNHCR staff and other aid workers from the global body tried to stop authorities from forcing refugees to leave the area around Nyala.

The government initially said the ban would be lifted Nov. 6, said UNHCR.

[...] Jan Pronk, the top U.N. envoy to Sudan, was in Nyala for a second day on Thursday trying to visit a camp that U.N. officials said was attacked by police a day earlier. [ed: Doesn't the phrase "attacked by police" seem rather discordant?]

[...] The U.N. Mission in Sudan also reported increased harassment of internally displaced people at two camps in north Darfur, Eckhard said.

Best of luck to the hapless refugees in Darfur. My advice: pick up a gun and learn how to use it. When the government is coming to kill you, you can't expect the United Nations to get in their way. At least with a gun in your hands, you can die fighting--and take a few of the sumbitches with ya.