Bernard KOUCHNER, French Secretary of State, here on a humanitarian aid mission, is the first government representative from the West to have been officially received in Khartoum since General Omar el-Beshir took power in June 1989. He succeeded in establishing the presence of international organisations in the camps, in order to help the victims of the civil war (which has lasted nine years and seems to have worsened since the imposition of the Koranic law in March, 1991).