Sudan orders Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to evacuate staff from 4 Darfur towns

Report by AFP (Paris) 4 March 2009 13:12 GMT
Sudan orders Doctors Without Borders out of Darfur

The French medical aid organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Wednesday it was pulling staff out of Darfur after the Sudanese government ordered them to leave.

"The government of Sudan has ordered MSF to evacuate all of its international personnel from a certain number of projects in western and southern Darfur by March 4 at the latest," MSF said in a message posted on its website.

Khartoum said it was unable to ensure the safety of the MSF teams given the imminent decision by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on whether to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Beshir for war crimes, the organisation said.

A MSF official said about 70 people including foreigners and Sudanese nationals who are not from Darfur were pulled out on Tuesday from four towns in the province.