AU says outraged by fresh Darfur violence
Dec 21, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — The African Union expressed outrage over a raid by suspected pro-government militiamen on a village in Sudan’s war-torn western region of Darfur that left nearly 20 people dead.
The attack, one of the worst in recent months, came as Sudanese government and rebel delegates met in the Nigerian capital Abuja for AU-sponsored negotiations aimed at ending the 34-month conflict in Darfur.
“The African Union special envoy for Darfur and chief mediator Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim is utterly outraged by the attack on Abu Saruj village in West Darfur,” an AU statement said.
The AU, which has been overseeing a shaky ceasefire between government forces and rebel fighters in the region, added that militiamen raided the village on Monday, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction.
It said that Salim “unequivocally condemns the unwarranted brutal killings of numerous innocent civilians, including women and children, and the destruction of their homes and property by armed militia.”
The two main rebel groups in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), issued a joint statement on Monday, blaming the attack on the notorious Janjaweed militia.
“It was a brutal massacre committed by the government militias (Janjaweed). It was terrorism and destruction,” the SLM and JEM said.
They added that 19 people, including two women and two children, were killed and “more than 45 houses” torched.
The Sudanese government denied any role in the attack, instead blaming “outlaws” based in rebel-held territory.
“A group of outlaws from rebel-held territories on Monday morning attacked Suraj, a government controlled village in West Darfur state, and killed a number of civilians, including women and children,” said a government statement carried by the official SUNA news agency.
It added that the state governor “condemned the brutal and unjustified incident, visited the village, offered assistance, deployed forces to protect the civilians and notified the AU.”
War broke out in Darfur in 2003 when rebel groups began fighting what they say is the political and economic marginalization of the region’s non-Arab ethnic groups by the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum.
The government responded by unleashing the Arab Janjaweed militias that have been blamed for many atrocities in the conflict that has left as many as 300,000 people dead and more than two million homeless.
The UN Security Council has mandated the Hague-based International Criminal Court to investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region.
The AU said that the Abu Saruj attack was “particularly deplorable as it has come at a time when intensive efforts are being made to negotiate a peaceful settlement to put an end to the conflict.”
Salim “stressed that the perpetrators of these atrocious and murderous acts (in Abu Saruj) should be made to face the full force of the law.”
The Abuja talks have slowed to a crawl as mediators try to narrow differences between the parties over key issues such as power- and wealth-sharing and security arrangements.
In a briefing to the Security Council on Monday, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, warned Darfur was rapidly becoming a dangerous region for civilians as well as aid workers.
“The killings have not stopped. The rapes are continuing, as are the burning, looting and forced displacement,” he said.
“We must be acutely aware that all that has been built up by the thousands of relief workers and hundreds of millions of dollars in donor contributions could be destroyed, and we could be on the brink of losing this huge humanitarian operation.”
(AFP/ST)