OIC-IDB MISSION TO VISIT DARFUR

A joint mission by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is heading to Darfur, Sudan, to provide emergency humanitarian relief at a cost of $1 million. The president of the IDB, Dr. Ahmed Mohammed Ali, met with OIC Assistant Secretary-General for International and Humanitarian Affairs, Ambassador Atta El-Manan Bakhit, and the ambassador of Sudan in Saudi Arabia at the OIC General Secretariat headquarters in Jeddah to discuss the goals of the mission. The ten-day mission will travel to Khartoum first and then to Darfur to provide needed medicine, food and other items for the refugees and people of Darfur. While in Khartoum, the mission will discuss with Sudanese authorities organizing an OIC international donors' conference in aid of Darfur. Following the outstanding success of the first international donors' conference organized by the OIC that was held in Qatar on June 12-13, for Promoting Food Self-Sufficiency in Niger and which raised $370 million, Sudan approached the OIC to organize a similar conference for helping relief the refugee crisis in Darfur. The issue was brought up during a visit by Meny Arku Menawy, senior aide of the president of Sudan and head of the Transitional Regional Authority in Darfur, to the OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah.