Sudan Attacks Darfur Civilians, African Union Says
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) — Sudanese government troops have attacked civilians in the Darfur region with “overwhelming” force in apparent coordination with nomadic militia forces known as the Janjaweed, the African Union said today.
About 400 Janjaweed fighters on camels and horseback attacked the Aro Sharow refugee camp in western Darfur, killing 34 people Sept. 28 as government helicopters flew overhead, said Baba Gana Kingibe, the union’s special representative to Sudan.
Government forces have “resorted to the violent, destructive and overwhelming use of force not only against rebel forces, but also on innocent civilian villages and the IDP camps,” Kingibe told reporters today in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. The African Union, a regional grouping of African countries, has a peacekeeping force of 6,000 troops in Darfur.
The violence may force the United Nations and international aid groups to suspend aid programs in the region, according to Jan Egeland, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator. Aid agencies are trying to feed 3.5 million people in Darfur, which is the size of France. As many as 180,000 people have died and 2 million have fled their homes in the two-year-old conflict.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday said he is “appalled” by the attacks which come as government and rebel negotiators are holding a sixth round of talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Kingibe said the violence in Darfur indicates neither side is showing “good faith.”
Janjaweed
The crisis in Darfur started in 2003 when the government, responding to rebel attacks, organized nomadic herders and some Arabic tribal militias into the “Janjaweed,” which means “bandits” in the Western Sudanese dialect, to attack farming settlements seen as supporting the rebels.
U.S. and Sudanese officials say they want the Abuja talks to reach a peace agreement by the end of the year. Full-scale clashes had eased since an April 2004 cease-fire, and the two sides agreed on July 5 a set of principles for future negotiations.
The U.S. government, which accused Sudan’s government of carrying out genocide in Darfur in 2004, says it won’t consider lifting its decade-old economic sanctions against Sudan without a Darfur peace agreement.
The sanctions prevent U.S. companies from investing in Sudan’s oil industry, the third biggest in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and Angola.
In recent days, the government’s deployment of helicopter gunships overhead while the Janjaweed forces attacked villagers suggests cooperation with the militia, Kingibe said.
`Collusion’
“This apparent land and air assault gives credence to the repeated claim by the rebel movements of collusion between the GOS forces and the Janjaweed/Arab militia,” he said.
There are reports that the leader of Janjaweed, Musa Hilal, led the attack on Aro Sharow, Kingibe said.
One of Musa Hilal’s sons was reportedly killed in a Sept. 19 attack by Darfur’s biggest rebel movement, the Sudan Liberation Army, or SLA, on the government-held garrison town of Sheiria, Kingibe said, while another was abducted.
If the government claims its latest attacks are in retaliation for the Sheiria assault, “this cannot be justified given the deliberately calculated and wanton destruction wrecked by the disproportionate use of force on innocent civilians and IDPs in their camps,” the African Union envoy said.
Robberies and assaults by unknown gunmen last month forced international aid agencies to stop using roads between the far western town of Geneina and nearby refugee camps, aid agency officials say. Their withdrawal from the area along the border with Chad slashed aid to about 110,000 people.
Aid Suspended
“As we speak, we have had to suspend action in many areas,” the UN’s Egeland told reporters in Geneva on Sept. 28. “Tens of thousands of people will not get any assistance because it’s too dangerous and it could grow exponentially.”
Kingibe accused government forces of painting their military vehicles white to make them appear similar to those of the Africa Union’s intervention force in Sudan, known as Amis.
“We urge the GOS forces to stop forthwith this unethical practice in order to maintain the integrity and neutrality of the Amis forces,” he said.
The government also has delayed permission for Amis forces to receive and deploy 105 armored personnel carriers donated by Canada to help keep the peace in Darfur, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Karl Maier in Khartoum, Sudan at [email protected].
Last Updated: October 1, 2005 08:22 EDT