Displaced villagers welcome U.N. report
By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
ABU SHOUK CAMP, Sudan, Sep 2, 2004 (AP) — Refugees who have fled the brutal conflict in Sudan’s Darfur province praised a United Nations call for foreign troops to quell the crisis there. Residents of a nearby village, meanwhile, blamed rebels for the violence and expressed suspicion about foreign involvement.
In the sprawling Abu Shouk camp, where 43,000 people seek shelter, Sokkarah Ahmed waves her arm at a semicircle of youngsters standing in ragged clothes around her and vents her rage against Sudan’s government, which is under intense international pressure to ease what the U.N. describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“Many of these children are orphans. I’m so angry at what the government has done,” said Ahmed, who fled her village five months ago.
“Warplanes came and bombed us. A lot of people were killed,” said Ahmed. “They killed our animals, our men, they burned our lands. It is impossible to go home. The government itself will kill us if we return there.”
A U.N. report on Wednesday called for a larger international monitoring force in Darfur, where Arab militias are accused of killing up to 30,000 African villagers and forcing 1.5 million to flee their homes. The government has denied allegations that it is backing the militias.
“We need peace, we need security,” said Yakub Adam, squinting through thick glasses as he carried firewood across the camp. “We support that, these are good words,” he added, when told of the U.N. call for a larger monitoring force.
But in a market in the nearby town of Al-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, townsfolk complained of interference by the international community and blamed rebels, not the government, for the crisis that has engulfed the remote western region.
“We will never accept any foreign interference in our problems,” said Mohammed Kandil, standing outside his grocery store. “In the African horn millions of people get killed and nobody pays attention. Why are they giving that interest to Sudanese matters?”
On July 30, the U.N. Security Council gave Khartoum 30 days to improve humanitarian access and rein in Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed.
In a report issued Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (news – web sites) told the council that the Sudanese government had not done enough to provide security for the 1.2 million “terrorized and traumatized” people displaced by the violence.
“Attacks against civilians are continuing and the vast majority of armed militias has not been disarmed,” the report said. It said a “substantially increased international presence in Darfur is required as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, the Canadian general who watched helplessly while genocide raged in Rwanda denounced Western countries for their “lame and obtuse” response to unnervingly similar horrors unfolding in Sudan.
“It makes me sick,” said retired lieutenant-general Romeo Dallaire, who 10 years after the led the ill-fated U.N. peacekeeping mission during the Rwandan massacre.
“It burns inside and the sentiments or the feelings that I had of abandonment in Rwanda are exactly the same that I feel today in regards to the Sudan,” he told The Canadian Press news agency.
“The Americans and the international community … did absolutely nothing to stop the genocide in 1994 and are certainly not proving themselves effective today,” he said.
The villagers sheltering at the sprawling Abu Shouk camp receive monthly rations of wheat, oil and salt, have been given tarpaulin sheets to cover their simple huts, and pump clean drinking water from stations dotted around the desert settlement.
Although for many at Abu Shouk conditions are no worse than in their villages, which lack electricity or running water, they are eager to return home, to plant their fields ready for next year’s harvest, and resume a normal life. But most are afraid to venture far outside the camp, fearing further attacks or abuse.
The violence erupted in February 2003, when two rebels factions, drawn largely from black African tribes, rose up against the Arab dominated government in Khartoum. For years there had been low level conflict between African farmers and Arab herdsmen, competing for scarce water and resources in the vast, arid region.
But rebel demands for greater political representation exacerbated traditional tensions and when the government moved to crush the revolt, it recruited help from the Arab tribes. However, Khartoum has repeatedly denied backing the Arab militiamen in a scorched earth campaign to quell the rebellion.
Efforts to forge peace between the government and the two rebel groups at talks in Abuja, Nigeria have proved fruitless, with each side accusing the other of violating an April 8 cease-fire.