Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-27-Speech-3-229"
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"en.20060927.20.3-229"2
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".
Mr President, for three years now, and under the gaze of a powerless international community, Darfur has been the victim of a terrible tragedy.
It is now that Darfur needs Europe. We here, in the European Parliament, do not have the right to turn our backs on this issue.
As you have said, the conflict has caused the deaths of 300 000 civilians. Two million people – or one third of the population - have been displaced within Darfur; 200 000 have crossed the border in order to flee to Chad. Three million people are entirely dependent on international food aid. Each day, children and families are attacked, displaced and killed. The humanitarian crisis is getting worse. In the majority of Darfur, humanitarian organisations are banned from coming to the aid of some 350 000 people who need medicines and food.
Owing to the state of malnutrition and lack of water, cholera and hepatitis E epidemics are multiplying in the camps. Those in charge of the NGOs are they themselves also victims of this conflict: twelve of them have been killed in the last two months.
Insufficient as it is, the peace agreement signed in Abuja on 5 May has not helped to end the violence but has, on the contrary, given rise to a fresh outbreak of violence. The fighting and the civilian massacres have resumed. 100 000 people have had to flee the violence since May. Thousands of soldiers from the Sudanese army have been deployed once again in the region, and the aerial bombardments have resumed. In the meantime, more than two million people are trying to survive, cooped up in camps, surrounded by their enemies and regularly attacked. Hundreds of women are raped each month as soon as they leave the camp and walk a few metres to go and find some wood to burn for heating or to use for food.
The only job that these millions of people used to have was that of working the land; they now find themselves deprived of this basic right and are reduced to cultivating – when they can – a few dozen square metres around the camps, running the risk of being attacked by the very people who destroyed their villages.
They are all 100% dependent on international aid, which is not particularly generous. Some months, the food rations are halved, because there are no subsidies, because the donors did not materialise. These camps, ladies and gentlemen, are truly open-air prisons. We can no longer remain indifferent to what is happening in Darfur.
Europe has a humanitarian, political and moral duty to impose peace in this part of the world. There can be no military solution to the Darfur crisis. There is an urgent need to reopen a negotiating space and to work on a political agreement to which all of the parties concerned would fully contribute. That is essential if the population of Darfur is to support the peace process. This agreement will have to provide for the people of Darfur to be represented at the various levels of government, for a genuine guarantee that the Janjaweed militias will be disarmed and for a guarantee that the two million displaced persons and the 200 000 refugees will be able to return safely to their lands.
We also call for humanitarian officials to be guaranteed free and secure access to all of the conflict zones, and we appeal to the Commission and to the Council to ensure that the European Union significantly increases its humanitarian aid.
We also call on the Sudanese Government to end its armed offensive and to immediately accept the Security Council decision to deploy a UN peacekeeping operation with the aim of putting a stop to the violence."@en1
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