UN rights team cancels Darfur visit over visa row (Reuters)

[Eugene]

UN rights team cancels Darfur visit over visa row

By Robert Evans | February 14, 2007

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators on Wednesday called off
a visit to Darfur after Sudanese officials demanded the removal of the U.N.'s former top
rights official from the group.

The six-member team, set up last December by the U.N. Human Rights Council after
fierce debate between countries defending Khartoum and others accusing Sudan of war
crimes in Darfur, said it would pursue its work without entering the country.

The group had been due to arrive in Sudan on Tuesday on the second stage of a two-
month mission to look into alleged abuses against civilians in the vast, arid region
where experts estimate that 200,000 have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their
homes in some four years of conflict.

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Sudanese Foreign Ministry sources said the objection was to Bertrand Ramcharan, a
Guyanan who was the U.N.'s Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2003-2004
and sent the world body's first rights team to Darfur.

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Full article: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/02/14/un_rights_team_halts_darfur_visit_over_visa_bar