UN rights monitors accuse Sudan of bombing Darfur
Sept 22, 2006 (GENEVA) — U.N. human rights monitors on Friday accused Sudan’s army of bombing villages in North Darfur, killing and injuring civilians, and forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.
“People talk about this white plane and bombs being dropped out of the back of the plane. This is a recurrent feature of reports of attacks on villages,” U.N. human rights spokesman Jose Luis Diaz told a briefing in Geneva.
“All indications are this kind of attack is continuing.”
The U.N. monitors’ latest report, covering the first half of September, comes as Sudan is under pressure to allow 20,000 U.N. troops to deploy in its arid west to replace 7,000 African Union troops whose mandate was extended until the end of the year.
Under-funded and poorly equipped AU forces have been unable to stem the violence, which analysts say has increased since a May peace deal between one rebel faction and the government.
Diaz said survivors told U.N. human rights monitors of bombings near Tabarat in North Darfur around Sept. 9-10, which drove some 400 people into the Rwanda camp for the displaced.
“Civilians in villages in North Darfur are forced to flee due to indiscriminate aerial bombardment by government aircraft who are waging a campaign against movements that haven’t signed the peace agreement,” Diaz said.
Analysts say all sides of the 3 1/2-year-old conflict are looking to gain territory and solidify their positions before the arrival of U.N. troops, which if deployed in Darfur would have an expanded mandate to enforce the peace.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosts a meeting of foreign ministers in New York on Friday to chart the world body’s course in Darfur.
The AU decision to extend its mission includes additional logistical and material support from the United Nations and a funding commitment from the Arab League.
RAPE “ALMOST A CLICHE”
Britain, which has proposed offering Sudan incentives in exchange for cooperation on U.N. troops, called on Friday for world leaders to prepare a summit on easing the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s violence-torn west.
“International leaders should be ready to meet soon to consider next steps,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters, adding that no agenda or date had yet been set.
An estimated 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted in the fighting in Darfur that began when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum charging it with neglect.
U.N. human rights monitors reported on Friday that sexual violence, which has been a horrific feature of the conflict, continues in South Darfur, particularly near camps for internally displaced people (IDP) near the town of Gereida.
“This has become almost a cliche, women go outside of IDP camps to collect firewood or engage in commerce and they become vulnerable to attacks by what are said to be military personnel or militia,” he said.
The area is government-controlled and the perpetrators were in uniform, often on horseback, according to the monitors.
But a rape case successfully prosecuted in court recently offers a glimmer of hope, Diaz said.
In Kabkabiya in North Darfur, a soldier was convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to five years in prison, he said.
“The court in that case heard testimony from the victim, a child witness and an adult, and considered a medical report that confirmed that the victim was raped,” he said.
“This shows that there can be results and action against this kind of abuse when there is a will, even though there is in addition to a lack of will in many cases, a lack of judicial infrastructure in Darfur to carry out such prosecutions.”
(Reuters)