Darfur rebels claim Sudanese police chase refugees from camp

LIBREVILLE, Aug 3 (AFP) — Sudanese policemen expelled refugees from a camp in the Darfur region of western Sudan, injuring about 10 of them, a rebel group claimed Tuesday.

No independent confirmation of the claim was available.

Darfur is the scene of a major humanitarian disaster as government troops and Arab militias fight rebels in a brutal cvil war that the UN says has left between 30,000 and 50,000 dead and displaced some 1.2 million people.

The claim that refugees had on Monday been chased out of a camp at Kalma, near Nyala, capital of the province of South Darfur, came from the military spokesman of the rebel Movement for Justice and Equality (MJE).

He said the refugees had been fired on and 10 wounded.

“The government is using force to drive displaced people to their villages… and to prove that there is calm,” Colonel Abdallah Abdel Kerim told AFP in Libreville by phone, quoting the MJE representative on a cease-fire commission.

He said he feared that once back home the refugees would be the target of Arab Janjaweed pro-government militias, accused of widespread murder, rape, arson and destruction.

The ceasefire commission is supposed to oversee the application of an agreement signed in April in the Chadian capital Ndjamena by the Sudanese government and two rebel movements, one of them the MJE.