Darfur villages burnt in fresh violence: report

NAIROBI, Jan 24, 2005 (IRIN) — Eight villages in the western Sudanese region
of Darfur were reportedly burned to the ground on Friday in a fresh
outbreak of violence, sources said. An unspecified number of people were
killed, the sources added.

Sudanese displaced people wait to receive food supplies from the World Food Programme (WFP). (AFP).

“The police have reported the attacks and the African Union monitoring
team is investigating what exactly happened,” a humanitarian worker in the
region, told IRIN on Monday.

Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the United Nations Advance Mission in
Sudan said the incident had not yet been formally reported to the mission.
“We have heard about the attacks, but are trying to get confirmation,” she
said.

The official Sudan News Agency reported that the attacks were carried out
by Darfur rebels and took place near Malam, about 100 km north of Nyala,
the capital of South Darfur State.

“The rebels have carried out a heinous attack on the areas of Malam,
burning down eight villages and killing and injuring a number of civilians
and looting properties,” the agency quoted a government statement as
saying.

Other international media reported that the two main rebel groups, Justice
and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army
(SLM/A), had denied any involvement in the incidents.

The violence came a day after the UN Secretary-General’s Special
Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, said fighting between government
troops and rebels in Darfur had decreased over the past month, but that
Arab militias were still attacking villagers.

“The violence is still perpetrated by pro-government militias and other
armed groups that are very difficult to control; they attack villages,
abduct people and increasingly use rape as a tool of war,” Pronk told
reporters.

“But between the government and the rebel movements, there is more
adherence to the ceasefire than a month ago – and that is a step forward,”
he added.

The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops and militias, allegedly
allied to the government, against the JEM and SLW/A, which are fighting to
end what they call the marginalisation and discrimination of the region’s
inhabitants by the state.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for international
prosecutions to deter continuing violence in Darfur.

In a report documenting crimes in the region, HRW accused the Sudanese
government and its allied militias of committing atrocities.

“Regardless of whether there has been genocide, the scale and severity of
the ongoing atrocities in Darfur demand an urgent international response,”
Peter Takirambudde, HRW’s Africa Director, said.

“Given Sudan’s continuing failure to prosecute the perpetrators, the [UN]
Security Council needs to refer the situation to the International
Criminal Court,” he added.

The conflict has displaced more than 1.45 million people and sent another
200,000 fleeing across the border into Chad since it began in 2003. The UN
has described the Darfur problem as one of the world’s worst humanitarian
crises.

The HRW report titled: “Targeting the Fur: Mass Killings in Darfur”, is
available at: http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/darfur0105/