Mr. Carter agreed to fly to the World Food Program compound in this North Darfur town, where he was supposed to meet with refugees.
But none of the refugees showed up, and Mr. Carter decided to walk into the town, a volatile stronghold of the pro-government janjaweed militia, to meet refugees who were too frightened to attend the meeting at the compound.
He was able to make it to a school, where he met with one tribal representative, and was preparing to go farther into town when Sudanese security officers stopped him. “You can’t go — it’s not on the program!” the local security chief, who would give only his first name, Omar, yelled at Mr. Carter, who is in Darfur as part of a delegation of respected international figures known as The Elders.
“We’re going to anyway!” Mr. Carter retorted angrily as a crowd began to gather. “You don’t have the power to stop me!”
But United Nations officials told Mr. Carter’s entourage that the Sudanese state police could bar his way. Mr. Carter’s traveling companions, the billionaire businessman Richard Branson and Graça Machel, the wife of the former South African President Nelson Mandela, tried to ease the situation, and his Secret Service detail urged him to get into a car and leave.
In an interview later, Mr. Carter played down the encounter, saying the security chief was only doing his job.
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