West Sudan MP says Arab militias kill 19 in raids
KHARTOUM, Dec 15 (Reuters) – A Sudanese politician said on Monday that Arab militias had killed 19 people and burned seven villages at the weekend in the western Darfur region.
Jafar Ismail also urged the government to stop an escalating conflict in Darfur, where two main rebel groups launched a revolt in February saying the Khartoum government marginalised the impoverished area.
Rebels accuse government forces of air raids and other attacks and say Khartoum has armed Arab militias to attack African tribes in the region, where tensions over scarce resources are rife.
In turn, Khartoum says the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), one of the two main groups in the west, has broken a ceasefire they signed in September. The other main rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), is not party to the truce.
Ismail, member of parliament for Beida in Western Darfur state, said Arab militias known as “Janjaweed” had ransacked and burned seven villages in his constituency on Saturday, killing 19 people and wounding 37.
“I am calling on the government to fulfil its responsibility (in Darfur),” he told Reuters.
The JEM also said seven villages were destroyed in Beida, and said those fleeing the area reported hundreds of dead. Independent accounts are difficult to obtain in the remote area that borders Chad.
The SLA and the government resumed Chadian-sponsored peace talks in N’Djamena on Monday. A source close to the talks said discussions were delayed a day because of efforts to include JEM, which has so far refused to join the negotiations.
Some analysts say the failure to resolve the conflict in the west could unravel a separate peace deal being negotiated in Kenya to end two decades of civil war in the south of Africa’s largest country.
Aid workers who recently visited Darfur said Janjaweed, who they also said were originally armed by the government, had been looting African villages and killing many inhabitants.
Clashes between Arab and African tribes are common in Darfur as a result of scarce water resources and pastures.