60 killed in recent Darfur clashes – UN, AU
May 21, 2006 (CAIRO) — A new surge of interethnic and militia violence has killed at least 60 people in separate attacks in Darfur over the past few days, the African Union and the United Nations said Sunday.
The killings came ahead of an expected visit by top U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi next Tuesday. A former envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq, Brahimi is due in Khartoum to push for the government to accept a U.N. resolution voted last week that plans for U.N. peacekeepers to take over operations in this vast region of western Sudan, the U.N. said.
Most of the recent attacks were launched by the so-called Janjaweed, a disparate group of Arab militiamen who are blamed for much of the atrocities in a conflict that has killed more than 180,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003.
The Janjaweed are allegedly backed by the Sudanese government, which pledged to disarm them in the May 5 peace agreement signed in Abuja, Nigeria.
The U.N. said in a statement Sunday it received unconfirmed reports that the Sudanese army had fought a Janjaweed group in southern Darfur on May 18, killing six and arresting two. Sudanese authorities were not available to comment on the incident.
The U.N. said the Sudanese army and police had stated they would disarm armed bandits in the zone. Nazir Tigani, a local militia leader, warned he would resist such a move, the U.N. said.
Anticipating a possible increase in violence, the U.N.’s security assessment office in Sudan advised U.N. workers and international non-governmental organizations to limit their movement in the area and to update possible evacuation plans.
Darfur rebel groups affiliated to leaders who refused the May 5 peace agreement have also executed some of the latest deadly raids, the U.N. and the AU said.
“We’ve been witnessing a stiff raise of attacks over the last week,” said Moussa Hamani, the chief information officer for the 7,300-strong AU mission to Darfur.
“The problem seems to be that everyone wants to maximize their territory before the truce and disarmament actually come into effect,” he told The Associated Press on the telephone from Khartoum.
Some 150 people took up arms in the southern Darfur village of Kalaka to attack the nearby Arab militia position in Defeis on May 19, the AU and U.N. said. Eleven villagers died and eight were wounded during the assault that killed eight militiamen and wounded eight, the two international organizations said.
The U.N. statement said the raid was in retaliation for a previous militia attack during which the brother of Minni Minnawi, the main leader of the Darfur rebellion, was killed on May 5 – the very day Minnawi signed the peace agreement.
On the telephone from neighboring Chad, Minnawi said his brother Yussef was a civilian who was not involved in the Darfur rebellion.
“The Janjaweed could still have targeted him on purpose, they have been known to do that,” he told the AP.
Minnawi stated his troops were not involved in Friday’s attack, and said he had heard reports the villagers had taken arms because Janjaweed were looting the area.
Hamani also said the AU was investigating a Janjaweed raid near Natiqa in South Darfur that left 29 people dead and five wounded on May 19.
In a separate attack in South Darfur on May 19, a group of Janjaweed from Niteaga raided the village of Baja Baju, controlled by a faction of the Darfur rebels, and killed six civilians, the AU and the U.N. said.
The U.N. and AU also said that a large group of about 1,000 Janjaweed on horseback were reported to be gathering near the town of Kutum in North Darfur, where deadly raids occurred earlier this month.
“This comes from local sources and cannot be fully confirmed,” U.N. spokesman in Sudan Baha Elkoussy said on the telephone.
“The problem is there are so many incidents taking place over such a large area that it is hard to investigate everything,” he said from Khartoum.
(ST/AP)