Situation in Sudan’s Darfur highly dangerous: French envoy

GENEINA, Sudan, June 21 (AFP) — Senior French foreign ministry envoy Renaud Muselier said the situation in Darfur was extremely dangerous, during a visit to a camp for displaced persons in the war-ravaged region of western Sudan.

“The situation is as dangerous as we thought,” foreign ministry secretary of state Muselier told AFP after touring the Mornay camp where the Sudanese authorities say 100,000 people have taken shelter.

He said that most of the inhabitants of the camp, which is located more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Geneina, the main town of West Darfur, were women and children.

“It looks safe in the camps, I am not sure if they are safe outside,” said the French official.

But Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said Monday that Khartoum-backed Sudanese militias accused of conducting “ethnic cleansing” in the Darfur region were terrorising the Mornay camp.

The medical aid group also warned that tens of thousands of people could die of hunger in Darfur because of a lack of humanitarian aid.

“After surviving massacres carried out by pro-government militias on their villages, displaced civilians in Darfur, Sudan continue to endure violent attacks and rapes around the areas where they have gathered,” a statement said.

“The same militias who carried out the initial attacks now control the camp’s periphery, virtually imprisoning people who live in constant fear,” it said.

“Men risk being killed if they leave, and women have been beaten and raped looking for food and other essential items outside the camp,” said the statement released in Geneva.

War broke out in Darfur in February 2003 when black African rebel groups, complaining of the economic neglect of their region and a lack of protection for local people, rose up against the Sudanese government.

The government’s response was to give the Arab Janjawid militias a free rein in cracking down on the rebels. Khartoum’s proxy militia has been accused of conducting a scorched earth campaign and ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

Clashes between the Sudanese army and the rebels in Darfur have killed at least 10,000 people and forced more than a million from their homes, according to UN estimates.

Khartoum, meanwhile, has been accused of hampering essential humanitarian access to the region.

The United States said Monday it expected Khartoum to live up to President Omar al-Beshir’s weekend pledge to rein in the militias.

The State Department, which last week said Washington was considering sanctions against Sudanese officials unless the militias were neutralized, said it had “noted” Beshir’s vow to respect an April 8 ceasefire in Darfur.

But spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States would wait to see whether Khartoum takes action against the militias.

“Certainly the United States would very much welcome the government taking action, finally, in this region to stop the attacks and to really abide by the ceasefire,” he said, while also calling on the two rebel groups active in Darfur to respect the truce.

The Sudanese government and rebels from Sudan Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement have agreed to the deployment of international observers of the ceasefire, but both sides repeatedly accuse the other of violating the truce.