UN envoy accuses Sudan army, militias of extra-judicial killings

KHARTOUM, June 13 (AFP) — A UN human rights representative Sunday accused Sudanese security forces and pro-Khartoum militias of carrying out a wave of extra-judicial killings in the war-torn western region of Darfur.

Asma Jahangir told a Khartoum news conference that she had been given “many witness reports that extra-judicial killings and summary executions were carried out by pro-government militias and security forces”.

The UN Human Rights Commission rapporteur said the killings took place in Darfur and Malakal in southern Sudan.

Jahangir is on a 13-day mission to the African country, where a rebel conflict launched in Darfur in February 2003 has provoked a fierce retaliation by government forces and allied Janjaweed militia.

“According to credible information, members of the armed forces, the popular defence forces and different pro-government militia groups have attacked villages and executed civilians summarily,” she said.

But Jahangir stopped short of classifying the violence as ethnic cleansing.

“However serious, the situation in Darfur does not amount to ethnic cleansing in my view,” she said.

The UN rapporteur also said that she had visited the capital’s Kober prison, where she talked to a number of prisoners on death row, some of whom were sentenced for crimes they committed under the age of 18.

“It is clearly, a violation of the international norm and I also understand that it is a violation of Sudanese law,” she said, stressing that she would call on Khartoum to investigate why minors were being sentenced to death.