Darfur refugees in crossfire – rebels, aid workers
February 20, 2008 (CAIRO) — Thousands of refugees were caught in crossfire Wednesday as Darfur rebels battled a large Sudanese government offensive near Sudan’s border with Chad, rebels and humanitarian workers said.
Local rebel commander Abbas Mohamed said a dozen civilians were killed and 20 arrested during the latest government attack, which targeted the Jebel Moon area of West Darfur on Tuesday.
“Fighting is still going on,” Mohamed told The Associated Press by satellite phone from Jebel Moon. Three rebels were also killed, repelling government troops, he said Wednesday.
At least 12,000 refugees have fled to Chad this month to escape the escalating combat, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “is extremely concerned by the renewed violence in West Darfur,” spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York, citing in particular the bombing of the Aro Sharow refugee camp on Monday and Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said he didn’t have “any details” about thousands of stranded refugees. “I’m sure the number is an exageration” Ali Sadiq said on the phone from Khartoum.
Rebels say some 10,000 more civilians are now trying to flee, but are being blocked on the border by the Sudanese military and allied janjaweed militia. “They want to cross to Chad but the government is barring the way,” said Mohamed, the local rebel commander.
The U.N. could not immediately confirm who was blocking these civilians on the border.
“We have 8,000 people (stuck) in that stretch,” Orla Clinton, a U.N. spokeswoman in Sudan, said on the phone. She said the situation remains unclear because humanitarian workers have had to evacuate the zone. “Obviously, we can’t go in if there is a bombing going on.”
Abdulwahid Elnur, the main leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement rebels, accused the U.N. and aid workers of abandoning Darfur’s civilians.
“The army and the janjaweed are killing in broad daylight and the international community is doing nothing,” he said on the telephone from Paris, where he lives in exile.
The Sudanese military said eight soldiers were killed and 15 injured in Tuesday’s fighting, which it described as a victory. “The armed forces have been able to clear up the Jebel Moon area and to spread its full control over the area,” army spokesman Gen. Mohamed al-Aghbash was quoted as saying by state television early Wednesday.
Despite a U.N. Security Council ban on military operations in Darfur, al-Aghbash said Jebbel Moon is “a legitimate target” for the army as long as rebels hold the zone.
The Justice and Equality Movement rebel group also claimed victory, saying it repelled three army battalions and several janjaweed units Tuesday in Jebel Moon. The government attack included “extensive aerial bombardment” by Antonov cargo planes and MiG-29 fighter jets backed by helicopters, JEM said.
“Our long ground-to-air missiles shot down two of the helicopters,” JEM field commander Adam Bakheit claimed in the statement.
JEM said the goal of the government offensive was “apparently to clear the area for the retreating Chadian rebels,” who are trying to return to their Darfur bases after their failed attack on N’djamena.
The Sudanese army did not comment the rebel claims to have shot down helicopters, but al-Aghbash accused the Chadian government of providing JEM with anti-aircraft missiles and said the rebels were “backed by Chadian troops and armored vehicles.”
Chad’s government denies it supports Darfur fighters, and in turn accuses Sudan of harboring the Chadian rebels who raided the neighboring capital, N’djamena, earlier this month.
More than 200,000 have died in Darfur and 2.5 million fled to refugee camps, including over 250,000 to Chad, since 2003, when local ethnic African rebels took arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination.
Sudan denies backing the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads accused of the worst atrocities in the conflict.
(AP)