Sudanese militia still making cross-border attacks in Chad: PM

LIBREVILLE, July 28 (AFP) — Sudanese Janjaweed militia are still making cross-border attacks on Chad in violation of a ceasefire deal signed in April, Chad’s Prime Minister told Gabon’s president here Wednesday.

Moussa Faki delivered the message to Gabon’s Omar Bongo in order to “inform the heads of state of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC) of what might happen as a result of these incursions,” an advisor to the Gabonese president told AFP.

Up to 200,000 people from Sudan’s Darfur region have fled the government-backed militia over the border into Chad. The Janjaweed have been repeatedly accused of making raids across the lengthy frontier.

A ceasefire between the militia and two rebel groups brokered by Chadian President Idriss Deby in April has been largely ignored. Under the truce deal the Sudanese government was supposed to have disarmed the Janjaweed.

The fighting in Darfur, which lies in the west of huge, oil-rich Sudan, has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with up to 50,000 civilians killed, according to the UN, and 1.2 million driven from their homes.