STILL THE SAME: "UN staff accused of raping children in Sudan"

The abuse allegedly began two years ago when the UN mission in southern Sudan (UNMIS) moved in to help rebuild the region after a 23-year civil war.



[...] The first indications of sexual exploitation emerged within months of the UN force's arrival and The Daily Telegraph has seen a draft of an internal report compiled by the UN children's agency Unicef in July 2005 detailing the problem.



But the UN has not publicly acknowledged that there is a problem and when contacted repeatedly by this newspaper UN headquarters refused to comment.



The allegations will be deeply embarrassing to the new UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, as the UN is pushing to be allowed to launch a new peacekeeping mission to help end the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's north-western region, Darfur.



The Telegraph understands that the Sudanese government, which is deeply opposed to the deployment of UN troops to Darfur, has also gathered evidence, including video footage of Bangladeshi UN workers having sex with three young girls.