Al-Bashir: All foreign aid groups should leave Sudan within a year

Mar 16, 2009, 16:43 GMT

Nairobi/Khartoum - Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Monday said that he wanted all international aid organizations to cease operations in Sudan within a year as the fall-out from his indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) continued.

Sudan earlier this month expelled 13 organizations, including Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, after the ICC issued an arrest warrant on al-Bashir for alleged war crimes.

Most of the agencies were banished from the conflict-hit Darfur province.

The United Nations has warned that kicking out the agencies, which were providing humanitarian supplies to millions of Darfurians, could create a catastrophe.

Al-Bashir Monday upped the stakes further, telling a military rally that foreign aid groups in future should drop relief supplies at airports and allow Sudanese organizations to take over from there.

The president has accused aid agencies of spying for the ICC.

The ICC accuses al-Bashir of genocide and other war crimes carried out in Darfur.

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when mainly non-Arab tribesmen took up arms against what they call decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum.

The UN says up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced. The Sudanese government claims only around 10,000 have died.