Banditry in Sudan’s Darfur creates new security threat

KHARTOUM, July 7 (AFP) — Bandits are exacerbating the fragile situation in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region, threatening people’s access to much-needed humanitarian supplies, the United Nations warned Thursday.

A displaced Sudanese man looks at his destroyed house after militiamen burnt the Sereaf village, in west Darfur along the Sudan and Chad border, April 22, 2005. (Reuters).

Bandits are not only stealing food and other items from people along main supply routes in the region, but they had resorted to murder, “killing truck drivers bringing food to the people,” UN envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk said.

“It is extremely serious,” Pronk told a press conference in Khartoum.

Pronk referred to a recent incident three kilometers (1.8 miles) outside Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, in which bandits attacked a loaded bus, killed four people and robbed passengers.

“These were just Sudanese people going to the market,” he said.

“Break-in attempts into compounds of humanitarian agencies are on the rise in Nyala,” a UN statement added.

“On the night of 2 July unsuccessful raids by thieves on an (International Nongovernmental Organization) INGO office and a UN compound were carried out,” it said.

The statement said “banditry in all three Darfur states remains a serious problem.”

Neither the Sudanese government nor the African Union mission monitoring a truce between the warring parties, he said, was currently in a position to do something about much of the banditry.

But “it has to be done by the AU,” said Pronk.

The AU now has 3,320 troops in Darfur, including 450 observers and 815 police officers. The number is set to double by the end of September, ultimately reaching 12,000 soldiers.

Logistical difficulties are hampering the deployment of the troops, but it had to be done, the UN envoy emphasised, saying the situation was relatively stable in areas occupied by the AU.

“I hope they will be available in September,” he said.

Pronk also expressed outrage that fighters of the Sudan Liberation Movement, the main rebel group in Darfur, was still holding 10 Sudanese aid workers, despite repeated pledges to release them.

He said the SLM promised three times to free them, but reneged on each occasion. “Three times the promise was broken. And that is in my view outrageous,” Pronk snapped.

The UN said government authorities also appeared to be obstructing the work of aid agencies, pointing to an incident in Golo, in South Darfur state, where a newly transferred army has been terrorising the humanitarian workers.

“Increased military activity in the town has prompted INGOs to temporarily relocate their staff to other areas of Darfur,” the UN said.

The new commander set up shop near the INGO base and every night he had a habit of getting soldiers to fire mortar rounds over the compound.

“I call on the government to call that military commander to order,” said the UN envoy.

Fighting has raged in Darfur since February 2003, when local groups launched a rebellion in the name of the region’s black tribes against marginalization by Khartoum’s Arab-dominated government.

The Darfur conflict has claimed between 180,000 and 300,000 lives, with some 2.4 million civilians displaced from their homes, while an additional 200,000 have fled into neighboring Chad.