Aid workers access to people in Darfur diminishing

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Humanitarian access is shrinking rapidly in Darfur where relief workers are attacked and intimidated, a U.N. humanitarian official said shortly before making his first trip to the region on Tuesday.

Briton John Holmes, the humanitarian and emergency relief coordinator who took up his post this month, plans to go to Khartoum, Juba in the south and Darfur in the west. His 10-day tour takes him to Chad and the Central African Republic, which have borne spillovers from the conflict in Darfur.

Holmes said in an interview with two reporters that aid workers were barred from many areas "more or less all the time" sometimes because of government operations, other times by rebel fighters.

In July 2005, international relief workers were able to reach some 90 percent of civilians in need. Now this is reduced to 64 percent, U.N. figures show.

The Darfur conflict began in early 2003 when African rebels took up arms, accusing the government of neglect. Khartoum then armed brutal militia known as Janjaweed, who murdered, pillaged and raped civilians. Now rebel groups, split into factions, are committing their own atrocities.

There have been "quite a lot of attacks from everyone" and "no one is innocent" whether the rebels, the government, the Janjaweed or bandits, Holmes said.

Some 4 million people have been uprooted because of the conflict, up from 1.08 million in April 2004. At least 200,000 have fled to impoverished Chad.

Holmes said he hoped for cooperation from the Khartoum government, including expediting and extending visas and getting supplies out of customs -- as well as security of the aid workers themselves, now numbering some 13,000 and spending about $1 billion annually.