Heba Aly's journalism

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Aid Agencies Expelled by Sudan Could Return, Diplomat Says

Bloomberg News
8 May 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=abA2LeYJpEF8

NAIROBI - Thirteen international relief agencies expelled by Sudan in March may be able to return if they operate under different names, a Sudanese diplomat said.

“The situation has arisen now in which some people would take off one hat, say Oxfam U.K., and wear another hat, which is Oxfam U.S.A., and carry on working,” Khalid Almubarak, spokesman of the Sudanese Embassy in London, said yesterday in a telephone interview. “No individuals were actually mentioned by name.”

Sudan accused the aid agencies, including U.K.-based Oxfam, U.S.-based CARE and the French and Dutch arms of Médecins sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, of spying for the International Criminal Court. The court issued an arrest warrant for President Umar al-Bashir on March 4, accusing him of war crimes in the conflict in the western region of Darfur.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Kenyan cure for chaos: no sex tonight

The Globe and Mail (Canada)
2 May 2009
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090502.SEX02ART02157/TPStory/?query=heba+aly

NAIROBI -- Off a main road in a suburb of Nairobi, two young women wearing high heels, hoop earrings and tight Western clothes discuss the latest gossip in Kenya: a sex strike.

"For me, I can't strike!" says 25-year-old student Vivian Nachii, laughing nervously at the question while leaning against a Toyota, rap music spilling out.

"Politics and marriage should not mix," says 23-year-old Arthur, from inside the car. "If my wife refuses to have sex with me," he says, "she goes back to her mother. That is my right."

"In any case, it's not African," Ms. Nachii's friend Liz Aywak pipes in. "We don't discuss sex in public."

But that's just what some Kenyan women are doing. On Wednesday, a coalition of more than 20 women's groups began a weeklong boycott, withholding sex from their husbands in protest against what they call poor leadership in a patriarchal society that risks plunging their country back into chaos.

Sudan Gunmen Say They Freed Two Western Aid Workers

Bloomberg News
29 April 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afSzTCIFEhmQ

NAIROBI - Gunmen said they freed two Western aid workers who were kidnapped in Sudan’s Darfur region on April 4, and a Sudanese foreign ministry official confirmed the claim.

“We released them,” a man identifying himself as Abu Mohamed El-Rizeigi, a spokesman for a group calling itself the Falcons for the Liberation of Africa, said in a satellite telephone interview from Darfur. “They are free.”

The women were released today “for humanitarian reasons” and “to give France a chance,” El-Rizeigi said.

Sudan Holds Aid Workers 'Hostage' Over Severance Pay, NGOs Say

Bloomberg News
24 April 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aXANfGDD.iww

CAIRO - Two aid agencies expelled from Sudan said the government refused to allow some of their workers to leave the country until they paid “illegal” severance packages to domestic staff amounting to millions of dollars.

Employees of the French and Dutch arms of Médecins Sans Frontières, the Geneva-based medical charity known as Doctors Without Borders, were “held hostage” until the funds were paid, Jane Coyne, head of mission for the French arm of MSF, said in an interview yesterday from Paris.

“It was really an act of intimidation,” Coyne said. “It’s hostage taking.”

Sudan: NGOs accuse government of "extortion"

UN humanitarian news service (IRIN East Africa)
24 April 2009
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84090

CAIRO - Staff of some of the NGOs expelled from Sudan last month have accused the government of “extorting” large sums of money from them. Khartoum has defended its demands, saying those who failed to pay what it called “compensation” might be jailed.

“They asked us to pay an exorbitant amount of money... [and said]: ‘We have your passports. Once you agree to pay, you can leave the country’,” said Jane Coyne, head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)-France, one of 13 aid agencies ordered to leave Sudan for their alleged provision of information to the International Criminal Court. On 4 March the ICC indicted Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On 19 March, Sudan’s Labour Ministry ordered all of the expelled agencies to pay their local staff members six months’ severance pay, rather than the one month in lieu of notice that the law stipulates in most cases.

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Hostage Darfur Aid Worker is Sick, Colleague Says

Bloomberg News
22 April 2009
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aExDsdmGzKVk

CAIRO - Two women aid workers taken hostage in Darfur on April 4 are being fed one meal a day and spend most of their time sleeping as they wait to learn the outcome of negotiations for their freedom, one of them said.

Claire Dubois, a French nurse who had arrived in Darfur just two weeks before she was kidnapped, is suffering from diarrhea, her Canadian colleague, Stéphanie Jodoin, said yesterday in a satellite telephone interview arranged by the kidnappers.

“We don’t have anything here,” said Jodoin, of Montreal. “My NGO tried to send things, but it did not arrive -- drugs, food, water.”

Without Food, Darfuris Go Hungry

The Christian Science Monitor (US)
21 April 2009
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0420/p06s04-woaf.html

CAIRO - During his visit to Sudan last week, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts visited the conflict-ridden region of Darfur, calling it a "humanitarian tragedy" that remains a "high priority."

More than a month and a half after13 major international aid agencies were expelled from Sudan for allegedly spying on the government, the situation on the ground is ever more grim in a region that was – before the expulsions – home to the world's largest humanitarian aid effort.

Concerns about the humanitarian situation in the semi-arid western Darfur region – where 2.7 million people live in camps for the displaced – come amid increased insecurity for aid workers in the region and claims that rebel groups are uniting in preparation for "change."