UN probe into atrocities in western Sudan starts work
GENEVA, April 6 (AFP) — A United Nations mission to investigate allegations of widespread atrocities by government-backed militia in Sudan’s Darfur region began work and was expected to last 10 days, a spokeswoman said.
“The technical fact-finding mission on the human rights situation in Darfur is starting today,” said Annick Stevenson, a spokeswoman for the United Nations at its European headquarters in Geneva.
Three people from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, including team leader Bacre Ndiaye, were already on the ground in Chad, where more than 100,000 Sudanese from Darfur have sought refugee status, she said.
Two more officials were due to join the team in the next couple of days, she said.
“The mission will start in Chad and will interview refugees from Darfur, and will visit Sudan later,” said Stevenson in a note.
Exact details of the mission, which should last around 10 days, would be decided on the spot, she added.
The UN said on Friday that the acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Betrand Ramcharan had asked Sudan to allow the mission into Darfur, but Stevenson did not say if there had been a response from Khartoum.
Government-backed militia have been killing, raping and looting local inhabitants from four local ethnic groups and systematically forcing them out of their villages, according to Human Rights Watch and UN aid workers in region who witnessed some attacks.
The conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, began in February 2003 and intensified just as Khartoum and the country’s main rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, started finalising a deal to end Sudan’s wider civil war, which began in 1983.
More than 10,000 people are thought to have died in just over a year of fighting in Darfur between rebels and government-backed militia groups.
An estimated 670,000 people have also been forced from their homes, many seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
United Nations officials say the Darfur conflict is now the “world’s greatest humanitarian and human rights catastrophe”.