It doesn't get more IRONIC than this.
We thought we were almost there, travel permits sitting in the Ministry of the Interior in Sudan for us to go to Darfur have just been approved, but with one slight HICCUP. Two of our crew members, Dutch producer, Kim Norgaard and South African cameraman, Chevan Rayson, are good to go. But guess what, for yours truly, of Kenyan descent but holding a US passport, there's a problem.
You see, at the recent UN General Assembly meeting in New York, the US State Department decided to restrict the travel requests of certain Sudanese officials. Now it seems like a tit-for-tat scenario. Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir has said he too will restrict the movements of US citizens wishing to travel outside Khartoum. 'But I'm actually Kenyan,' I insist. 'They don't come more AFRICAN than me,' I argue. 'But you have an American passport,' say the officials here, 'That makes you one of them.'
Is this what you call a diplomatic 'stand-off?' Will the travel restrictions also be applied to journalists and more importantly, much-needed Aid workers wishing to ease the misery of the desperate and downtrodden in Darfur?
Even as I write this, we're in a 'holding pattern'. We're trying to get on a flight early Sunday morning to El-Fasher, capital of Northern Darfur. We're so close and yet so far, the next few hours are critical, and the proverbial ball is back in the court of the Sudanese Government.
