German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle must press for a comprehensive peace plan for Sudan in talks with his Sudanese counterpart, Ali Karti, on Wednesday in Berlin. This is the urgent appeal sent by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) to the German Foreign Minister. "The situation continues to deteriorate for the three million Darfur refugees," said the head of the Africa section at the STP, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Tuesday. "Violence and despair are on the rise in refugee camps. Access to the camps for aid organizations is being restricted by officials in some areas. Pressure for a timely enforcement of the referendum on the future of South Sudan must not be allowed to push peace efforts for Darfur into the background."

In a further appeal to a delegation of the UN Security Council that will be visiting South Sudan, Darfur and the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the STP drew attention to the catastrophic security situation in western Sudan. "This is not the time to dismantle the refugee camps, as the Sudanese government has already begun to do," reads the appeal. "There is still fighting in the provinces of western Sudan. In spite of the publication of a new "peace plan" for Darfur, al least 18 villages in South Darfur have been bombed by the Sudanese air force since 26 September 2010. According to eyewitnesses around 100 civilians, including 45 schoolchildren, were killed last Friday in an air strike on the village of Java."

In the scope of their latest Darfur strategy, the Sudanese government wants to disband the refugee camps in the western part of the region. "They are trying to create an impression of peace in the region," criticized Delius. "But those responsible for the genocide have not been brought to justice, nor is there any realistic hope that the refugees can return to their villages in the near future. 3,400 settlements were destroyed during the genocide." The wave of violence does not stop at the camp borders, where the parties to the conflict routinely carry out politically motivated killings in efforts to mobilize people for their cause. "It is a matter of extreme urgency that the international community take a stronger stand for Darfur refugees. The region is a powder keg and the situation grows more dangerous every day."

For further information, please contact Ulrich Delius.

Translated by Elizabeth Crawford