KHARTOUM, Sudan, June 30 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an apparent move to convince Khartoum to cooperate with international aid efforts, has begun a three-day visit to Sudan.
In addition to meeting with government ministers and representatives of non-governmental organizations and senior U.N. officials on the situation in the beleaguered Darfur region, he also had a session with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The talks focused on obstacles aid workers face trying to bring relief to an estimated 2 million people affected by the crisis, said a spokesman at U.N. World Headquarters in New York.
U.N. agencies and NGOs have warned of a large death toll by the end of the year unless more humanitarian aid gets through to civilians.
More than 1 million people are internally displaced and at least another 150,000 others have become refugees in neighboring Chad since government forces started fighting two Darfur rebel groups early last year.
At the U.N. Security Council, the United States circulated a draft resolution on Darfur, calling for financial and travel restrictions on the janjaweed Arab militia groups that allegedly had been supported by the Khartoum government.
