Human Rights Monitoring in Darfur and Sudan

Impartial observation by human rights monitors throughout the country is needed as allegations of human rights violations can jeopardize the consolidation of peace, especially in southern Sudan and areas where southern Sudanese live throughout Sudan. The mandate of the human rights monitoring mission in Sudan should clearly include monitoring, documentation and regular public reporting. Timely public reporting is also important as a deterrent and a preventive mechanism, particularly in Darfur.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was given a mandate to monitor on-going abuses in Darfur. Although the monitors now number about 30, a significant human rights presence in Darfur, as called for in Security Council resolution 1590 (2005) is critical. We urge donors to support and facilitate the intended expansion of the OHCHR monitoring presence in Darfur.

OHCHR human rights reports on Sudan and Darfur should be periodic and public. Many victims and witnesses interviewed by the OHCHR monitors have no knowledge of the OHCHR’s conclusions and the follow up to their complaints. Rumor continues to poison the environment particularly in Darfur and exacerbates ethnic tensions.

The OHCHR mandate in Darfur should be expanded to include the monitoring, investigation, and public reporting on human rights violations committed by the three rebel groups in addition to abuses committed by other parties to the conflict. This will not only help establish the bona fides of the OHCHR and the international community generally, but it will also require accountability of the rebels and recognize the victims.

OHCHR must have the capacity to deploy throughout Sudan and Darfur. It is vital that the OHCHR monitors are located not only in the state capitals, but in Sudan and Darfur’s cities, smaller towns and troubled rural areas where internally displaced persons are attempting to return, and near camps and concentrations of displaced persons. They urgently require adequate logistics to reach remote locations where abuses continue to be committed.

Donor governments need to ensure that experts on sexual violence in armed conflict are deployed in the monitoring teams of AMIS and the OHCHR, and that all military and civilian units charged with protective and monitoring roles receive proper training in observation, investigation and recording of abuses.

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April 2005