UK Children's Charity to Pull Out of Darfur

Save the Children today announced that it was withdrawing from the Darfur region of Sudan after the murder of two of its aid workers there earlier this month.

Medical assistant Abhakar el Tayeb and mechanic Yacoub Abdelnabi Ahmed, both Sudanese nationals, were in clearly marked humanitarian vehicles when they came under fire in south Darfur on December 12. Two other Save the Children aid workers were killed in October when their vehicle hit a landmine in the north of the region.

Mike Aaronson, the charity's director, said 250,000 people in Darfur were dependent on its assistance, and described the withdrawal as "probably the worst decision I have ever had to take in my time at Save the Children".

"Although we are used to working in very tough and difficult and dangerous places, there is a bottom line in terms of what we can ask our staff to do," he said.

Mr Aaronson warned that the deteriorating security situation - with increasing banditry and regular violations of a shaky ceasefire by all sides - meant other charities could follow Save the Children's lead.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and around 1.8 million forced to flee in almost two years of fighting between rebels, government forces and Arab Janjaweed militia, but the security situation varies across the Darfur region.

A spokesman for Tearfund, one of several British charities still in Darfur, said its workers were based in less risky locations than Save the Children's.

"We work in a different area, in west Darfur," a spokeswoman said. "It is a government-held area, and the situation is fragile - but because we are not crossing from government to rebel-held territory, it is less dangerous than the areas in the north and south where Save the Children was working."

Oxfam, which has aid workers across the region, said it would continue to work in Darfur, but added that it fully understood why Save the Children was withdrawing. "We offer our support and sympathy to the families and colleagues of the staff members that have been attacked and killed," Caroline Nursey, the charity's regional director for east Africa, said.

"Oxfam's own work has been hampered by insecurity, and we have had to use UN helicopters to reach people as many roads are simply too dangerous to travel on. For the people of Darfur, there needs to be an immediate end to the violence."

A spokesman for the British Red Cross said it was keeping the security situation under constant review.

The African Union, which is trying to mediate, has warned that Darfur is a ticking bomb with vast quantities of arms and ammunition flooding in. The UN has described it as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with around 2.3 million people reliant on overseas aid to survive.

Its World Food Programme last week announced that security issues have now put 360,000 formerly accessible and needy civilians in north and south Darfur beyond humanitarian reach.

Mr Aaronson blamed ineffectual efforts from the international community to secure stability. "This is not just about one agency deciding to leave. There is a real threat to the whole humanitarian operation at the moment," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Save the Children, which has worked in Sudan for 20 years, said it would continue operations in other parts of the country, and the US branch of the charity is remaining in west Darfur.

The Travis singer Fran Healy has just returned from a trip to Sudan with the charity, where he spent the week visiting projects funded by proceeds from the Band Aid single to support families in the region.