Chad lodges complaint with Sudan over cross-border militia attack
NDJAMENA, May 6 (AFP) — Chad called in the Sudanese ambassador to Ndjamena Thursday to lodge a formal complaint over alleged cross-border attacks by an Arab militia fighting alongside Khartoum in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
“We have called in the ambassador to formally protest against the frequent and repeated incursions by Janjawid militias on Chadian territory,” a Chadian diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
On Wednesday, Chadian soldiers clashed with the Janjawid on the Chadian side of the border, government spokesman Moctar Wawa Dahabune told AFP. The militia are already accused of serious rights abuses in western Sudan.
Dahabune said the clash was “the consequence of frequent and repeated incursions by Janjawid militiamen into Chadian territory.”
Last week, a member of a Chadian team trying to broker peace in Darfur, where rebels have been fighting the Sudanese government and its allied militias since February last year, accused the Janjawid of attacking the Chadian side of the border town of Kulbus, killing one civilian.
The attack was “all the more unacceptable because the Sudanese army tolerates and offers land and air backup to the Janjawid militias,” said Allami Ahmat, who is also a diplomatic adviser to Chadian President Idriss Deby.
“We can confirm that the Janjawid militia is still very active and has not been disarmed,” said Ahmat, backing accusations by Darfur rebels that Khartoum had breached an accord signed on April 8 in the Chadian capital.
The military spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) told AFP last week: “Rather than disarm the Janjawid militias, Khartoum is setting them up in four places to integrate them into the army… This is a violation of the Ndjamena accord.”
Under the terms of the deal signed in the Chadian capital, the parties agreed to cease hostilities, guarantee safe passage for humanitarian aid to the stricken region, free prisoners of war and disarm militias blamed for much of the violence.
The agreement, the third to call for a ceasefire following two short-lived truces, was signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups — the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement.
The war in Darfur is estimated by the United Nations to have claimed at least 10,000 lives, uprooted a million people from their homes, and driven more than 100,000 to seek shelter across the Chadian border.
The United Nations has accused the Janjawid of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, where rebels rose up in February 2003, accusing the Arab-Muslim government in Khartoum of backing ruthless militias and neglecting their region, peopled mainly by black Africans.