US demands Sudan rein in pro-government militias in strife-torn Darfur
WASHINGTON, April 2 (AFP) — The United States on Friday condemned ongoing violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region and demanded that Khartoum rein in pro-government militias that have rampaged through villages on killing and arson sprees there.
“The United States views with grave concern the deteriorating situation in Darfur,” the State Department said, adding that there was strong evidence that the militias, known as “janjaweed,” were continuing their abuses.
“It’s clear to us that government-supported militia groups … are continuing to burn villages and kill and abuse civilians, and that there’s a massive humanitarian crisis going on there,” deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said.
“We condemn the atrocities going on in Darfur in the strongest terms and we call on the government of Sudan to take immediate steps to stop the janjaweed and to allow outside monitoring of the situation there,” he told reporters.
He said Washington welcomed the start of peace talks in Chad and urged that the parties negotiate an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the region.
More than 10,000 people are believed to have been killed in fighting between rebels and government-backed militias in Darfur in recent weeks and earlier Friday in New York, the UN Security Council expressed “deep concern” about the situation.
In Geneva earlier, the United Nations said it would in coming days send a fact-finding mission to the troubled region where an estimated 670,000 people have been forced from their homes due to the fighting.
Many of those have sought refuge in neighbouring Chad, where mediators on Friday finally managed to bring the two sides together in the talks after three days of delay.
Meanwhile, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Khartoum of backing massive human rights violations by the janjaweed against non-Arab civilians.
In a report titled “Darfur in Flames: Atrocities in Western Sudan”, HRW said Khartoum was backing a scorched-earth campaign in the region and that government forces and militias of Arab descent have joined together to kill, rape and loot civilians.
The civilians targeted are from non-Arab ethnic communities from which the two main rebel groups draw their members, it said. Those groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, are both represented at the talks in Ndjamena.
Human Rights Watch said Khartoum would “have to answer for crimes against humanity that cannot be ignored”, saying it had armed up to 20,000 of the militiamen and allowed them to “operate with full impunity.”