Genocide lays waste Darfur’s land of no men

By Hilary Andersson

DARFUR, Sudan, Nov 14, 2004 (The Times) — As Hawa, a mother of seven, was working in a field in the mountains of Darfur, she saw men approaching on horses. Seven of them surrounded her. “They tied my legs to bushes,” she said, “then raped me one by one.”

Women wait outside a tent for counselling at Abushouk camp near El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state November 7, 2004. The camp is home to more than 45,000 people who have fled fighting in western Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, where sexual violence against women and girls is common. (Reuters).

The men were members of the Janjaweed, the government-backed Arab militias that have been fighting mainly black African rebels in the western region of Darfur. They left Hawa bleeding and told her that she was a dirty animal. Later they returned to kill 30 members of her family.

The attack was not a random incident. Evidence has emerged that the killings in Darfur are part of a systematic attempt by the Sudanese government and its militias to clear the region of its black African population. During a month-long investigation, the BBC’s Panorama has compiled eye-witness accounts of previously unreported mass murders that indicate genocide may be occurring in Darfur.

Hawa is from Kidinyir, a town in the Jebel Marra mountains cut off from the world since the start of the crisis. Outsiders are not allowed into the area but I slipped in illegally across rebel-held front lines.

Kidinyir is a vision of skeletal concrete ruins. The only sound is of birds singing. On the edge of the town lie four mass graves.

Many survivors have escaped to the mountains. Some eat grass to survive. Many families move location every few days for fear of being seen and attacked. Witnesses say that the Janjaweed and government forces attacked Kidinyir seven times in a year, until everyone had fled or been killed.

Hawa and her family suffered repeated attacks. Then earlier this year, soon after she was raped, she heard the planes and the gunfire again. “Someone was screaming, ‘They have killed your father, Adam.

They have killed Mohammed’,” she said. Mohammed was Hawa’s 10-year-old son.

She ran against the tide of escaping villagers to try to find her family. The Janjaweed, on horses, chased her down, however, and this time five men raped her.

At least 80 children have been killed in Kidinyir in 12 months, as well as an unknown number of adults. Most of the survivors are women, turning Jebel Marra into a land virtually devoid of men.

Although tens of thousands of black Africans have been killed in Darfur, Sudan’s government insists it is not behind the Janjaweed or the killings. But a visit to a Janjaweed stronghold in north Darfur revealed clear links between the militia and the government.

In the town of Mistariha, in Darfur’s deserts, lies a secret Janjaweed camp. Although it is a closed military area, observers from the African Union have identified it as a base for 900 Janjaweed fighters.

The town’s market is crowded with fighters tending their camels, chatting to women and shopping. They wear unmarked government uniforms. The word Janjaweed is an insult, meaning “a demon on horseback”. It is a description nobody will admit to.

The Janjaweed were willing to talk and show their government identity cards. But when their commander discovered my presence he angrily denied leading a Janjaweed unit.

An 18-year old who wanted to be known only as Muhammad was more forthcoming. He said that he had joined up last year with the same Janjaweed unit after being offered a gun and £60 a month. He soon left in disgust at the killings.

“Government military planes came to the camp very frequently, followed by big trucks loaded with weapons and uniforms for the camp,” he said.

Many of those who have been raped or have witnessed atrocities say the Janjaweed use racist slander as they act, speaking openly of exterminations.

Troops from the African Union, the only international force in Darfur, are unable to interfere: their mandate allows them to protect civilians only if acts of violence are carried out in front of them. When Sudanese policemen attacked civilians in a refugee camp in southern Darfur last week, African Union soldiers did nothing.

Chris Mullin, the Foreign Office minister, has rejected international intervention as complicated. “If any western force did intervene it would become very bogged down. Some new call for all the jihadists in the world would emerge and we’d find ourselves very quickly being shot at from all sides,” he said.

Hawa’s suffering did not end with the deaths of her father and Mohammed. A month later, while making breakfast, she again heard horses and camels approaching. Her six-year-old son ran out of the house in a panic and was shot in the back. “I started wailing and screaming, but he was already dead,” she said.

Her husband is still alive, but insane. Hawa has borne a child from the rape but does not want the boy and tried to give him to us. She finds it difficult to carry on living when so many seem to want her dead.

Hilary Andersson’s report from Darfur, The New Killing Fields, broadcasted on Panorama, BBC1 on Sunday 14, Novembre 2004.