UN calls off Clooney bodyguard

HOLLYWOOD actor George Clooney is said to be risking his life by travelling without security in a war-torn region of Africa.

Clooney is travelling in Chad Clooney is travelling in Chad

The Oscar winner, a United Nations “messenger of peace”, is travelling unofficially in Chad, on the border of the Darfur area of Sudan, to meet refugees.

However the United Nations has been accused of pulling Clooney’s security team in an effort to stop him speaking out on the area’s troubles.

The move comes as the region is plunged into further uncertainty as an arrest warrant is expected to be issued by the International Criminal Court for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, the man believed to be most to blame for the crisis.

It is feared that Bashir could retaliate by invading Chad where Clooney is at risk of being kidnapped or attacked.

New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof, who is with Clooney in Chad, said in his column: “Apparently concerned that Mr Clooney might say something strongly critical of Mr Bashir – perhaps come down on genocide – the United Nations called me on Wednesday to say that effective immediately it was pulling Mr Clooney’s security escort as he travelled these roads along the border.”

Kristof said: “Now that did seem pretty mean-spirited. A Frenchman working for Save the Children was murdered on such roads last year and the UN requires a military escort for its own vehicles here.”

Syriana star Clooney, 47, is in the region with Kristof, another reporter from American network NBC, and his father, Nick, also a journalist, to highlight the problems in the area.

The actor, who rose to fame in the Nineties in the American hospital drama ER, plans to meet President Barack Obama after he returns next week to discuss the crisis.

Obama visited a refugee camp in Chad in 2006 and Clooney is keen for him to appoint a diplomat to help bring peace to the region.

UN officials said Clooney is not travelling in his role as a goodwill ambassador so he does not qualify for official protection.

Clooney agreed that this trip, his sixth to Darfur and Chad, would be privately arranged.

UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said the mission in the West African country has no armed military police and relies on local police and a European Union peacekeeping force, EUFOR, for escorts.

About 300,000 people have died as a result of the war in Darfur, according to UN sources. The troubles began in 2003.

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