Women in Darfur camps still prey to rape

KHARTOUM, June 25 (AFP) — Women in displaced persons’ camps in Darfur remain prey to rape, a UN security report said, adding that two Sudanese aid agency staff had been kidnapped by ethnic minority rebels.

Sudanese women and children sit in front of a tent on the sand in the Kalma camp for internally displaced persons on the outskirts of the southern Darfur town of Nyala. (AFP).

Five women from the Kalma camp outside the South Darfur state capital of Nyala were abducted and raped when they left the camp to collect firewood on Tuesday, the report said, without giving further details.

Human rights watchdogs charge that rape has been so widespread in the scorched earth campaign unleashed by the government and its Arab militia allies against the rebels that it is deliberately being used as a weapon of war.

The UN report did not specify which aid agency the two kidnapped Sudanese worked for but said it suspected the larger of the two rebel movements — the Sudan Liberation Army — of being behind their abduction.

The two were seized near Tawilla town in North Darfur state “presumably by the SLA”, it said.

“The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has received assurances from the SLA that the two international non-governmental organization staff members will be released soon.”

The UN report said government police lodged a complaint with African Union truce monitors saying that the SLA attacked a police station in Bisaro village in North Darfur, killing one person and wounding two.

It said the SLA also killed five fighters of the rival Justice and Equality Movement and wounded 11 in an attack on Iriba village, in West Darfur, on Wednesday.

A convoy of seven UN-hired commercial trucks ferrying food supplies from El Fasher to Kutum in North Darfur was seized by armed men near Lumbati village and looted, the report said, adding that the drivers were released unharmed.

Peace talks in Nigeria between the government and the rebels remained bogged down Saturday two weeks after they opened.

Between 180,000 and 300,000 people have died in Darfur, the vast majority of them civilians. At least 2.4 million more have fled their homes since the rebels launched their uprising in February 2003.