EU must do more for Sudan's children pleads former sakharov prize winner

Sudanese human rights lawyer Salih Osman has urged the EU to do more to end the "unbelievable" suffering of his compatriots.

Speaking exclusively to this website, Osman said, "My message is plain and simple: Please help to end the genocide in my country."

He was speaking after thousands of people in over 30 countries across the world marked five years of war in Darfur with protests.

Sunday’s Global Day for Darfur, organised by a coalition of human rights groups, sought to highlight how more than one million Sudanese children have been caught up in the bloodshed and displacement in the region.

Osman, who last year was awarded the European parliament’s prestige Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, told theparliament.com, "NGOs in Europe have done a lot but the EU has to do more to help end the suffering of my people. It has to play a more active role.

"Specifically, more troops are needed to help protect the innocent people, 80 per cent of them women and children, currently in asylum camps in Darfur. These people are unable to return to their homes because it is unsafe to do so.  They include children who have been orphaned and others who have known nothing else other than camp life.

"Troops need to more effectively deployed on the ground, some member states have stated that they have offered to send more troops but have been refused by the Sudanese government. This is not true," said Osman, who is a Sudanese parliamentarian and former human rights lawyer.

"More logistical help, such as helicopters, is also urgently required."

Osman also fears that the international spotlight on Sudan is starting to fade.

"It is important that the story of what is still happening here, genocide, is kept in the headlines," he said.

About 200,000 people are thought to have died in the conflict since 2003. In January this year, the UN-AU hybrid force was expected to be deployed to the region but this has been hampered by obstruction by the Sudanese government.

Osman works with the Sudan organisation against torture to provide legal assistance and other aid to victims of human rights abuses in Sudan.

For over two decades he has provided free legal representation to people arbitrarily detained, tortured or otherwise abused in Sudan's various civil wars.

As violence in Darfur has worsened in recent years, he has worked to provide a record of the alleged war crimes in that region.

His fight against injustice in Sudan has had a personal cost. Members of his own family have been killed, tortured or burned out of their homes by the militias.

He himself was imprisoned by the Sudanese government for over seven months in 2004 without charge or a trial.

Human Rights Watch has described Osman as an "essential resource" for Darfurians facing persecution and a "thorn in the side of those who use violence to cling to power".

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