C.R.S. Returns to Western Darfur

Catholic Relief Services reported on March 29 that the agency is resuming operations in western Darfur more than two months after evacuating its staff. Just days earlier it warned that it might be forced to suspend operations indefinitely if it could not receive approval from the North Sudanese government in Khartoum to resume its services to Darfur’s hungry and displaced people. In mid-January, more than a dozen C.R.S. workers were evacuated from a remote area of western Darfur to Khartoum with the help of the United Nations after receiving “indications of threats.” There had been erroneous reports that C.R.S. had been distributing Bibles. Khartoum officials at that time asked C.R.S. to leave because they could not guarantee security for their staff in the troubled region. The agency reports that if it had closed its food program, more than 400,000 people would have been without food aid.