Arab militia attacks continue as govt urges IDPs to return home
NAIROBI, June 24, 2004 (IRIN) — Janjawid militias are continuing to kill
civilians and burn villages in the three states of western Sudan’s Darfur
region, as the government urges displaced people to return to their homes,
according to the United Nations.
Militias had attacked, looted and burned six villages around Golo,
Southern Darfur, on 21 June, reportedly killing six civilians, said a UN
report released on Tuesday. Army and police elements were in the area but
reportedly were not intervening to prevent the attacks, despite a recent
presidential decree calling on all government forces to control and disarm
the militias, the report added.
Looting and attacks were also reported on the edge of Kalma camp for
internally displaced persons (IDPs), just outside Nyala, and on a village
near Bilel camp, both in Southern Darfur. The village of Hajir Tono, 30 km
southeast of Nyala, had also reportedly been burned to the ground.
In Northern Darfur, “a clearly marked humanitarian convoy” travelling from
Kabkabiya had been fired on by government troops on 15 June, the UN said,
while clashes between the government, the Janjawid and rebels of the
Sudan Liberation Army were continuing, particularly south of Al-Fashir.
For latest UN reports on the Darfur crisis go to unsudan.org
On 19 June, President Umar Hasan al-Bashir announced that authorities in
Darfur had been mobilised to maintain security and stability by
“controlling and chasing all uncontrolled armed groups and outlaws, and
disarming them and bringing them to justice”.
He instructed judicial authorities in Darfur to set up courts and offices
to “punish the criminals and armed robbery gangs”. He also directed
relevant ministries to distribute seeds to IDPs to make “a success [of]
the current agricultural season”.
The Sudanese government has repeatedly said that Darfur’s IDPs, believed
to number over one million, should return to their homes. A statement
released last week said voluntary organisations and the government should
launch a “humanitarian campaign” to resettle them.
But humanitarian workers report that IDPs are being forced to move back to
their homes in the absence of any real protection from attacks. In Murnei,
Western Darfur, where 75,000 IDPs have congregated, local authorities
announced recently that they wanted people to return to their home
villages “as quickly as possible”, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) reported
this week.
In Zalingei, 70 km from Murnei, camp officials had been “pressured” by
local authorities to return home in the hope that others would follow,
said an MSF statement. “Salaries of reluctant officials are being cut off,
while others have been threatened with arrest,” it continued.
“Without genuine guarantees of safety or the means to survive, people now
live in fear of being displaced yet again back to villages that have been
completely destroyed,” it added.
Aid organisations were being asked to conduct their activities in
observance of the policy of return, and to “encourage” people to move, MSF
said. “Relief workers, already overwhelmed by the catastrophic situation
in the existing camps, would have to spread out across multiple villages.
It is impossible for community life and farming activities to resume on
such short notice in such devastated places, especially as the rainy
season begins.”
The UN reported this week that agencies would closely monitor
distributions of aid and the targeting of displaced people to distinguish
between those who were voluntarily returning and those “that feel forced
to return”.
Despite assurances of safety from the government, residents of the village
of Dibis, Southern Darfur, had told UN officials that the military forces
deployed there had to be paid to offer any protection from attacks.
Humanitarian agencies are worried about “growing indications” that
Janjawid are being incorporated into the military and police, and serving
as “protectors” of the IDP camps, according to a UN statement.
Humanitarian workers had continually emphasised that only civilian police
units should be used to protect the displaced, said the statement.
MSF said the ongoing attacks meant that people remained entirely dependent
on external aid, which was inadequate and irregular. Because of acute
shortages of food, one child out of every five in Murnei was suffering
from acute malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the rainy season has started in Darfur on schedule, in
mid-June. Agencies believe that within a matter of weeks the rains will
have rendered some roads impassable, making the delivery of assistance
impossible, and transforming crowded and unsanitary displacement sites
into breeding grounds for disease, according to the UN.
The World Food Programme estimates that during the rains about 11
locations will become totally inaccessible, around 48 will be accessible
and 66 partially accessible.
MSF predicted that within a few days, or weeks at most, heavy rains would
begin, and excrement would flow across the entire site of Murnei camp.
“Mortality from diarrhoea, which today represents one-third of the deaths,
will only increase,” it said.
About 200 people are dying very month as the result of violent acts,
starvation and disease in Murnei, according to MSF. A statement said
people were living in perpetual fear of new killings and rapes, because
the same militiamen who had conducted “scorched-earth attacks” on their
villages now controlled the periphery of the camp.
After the intense violence they had been subjected to, many IDPs perceived
the ongoing attacks to be a “continuation of a policy aimed at destroying
them as a group and severely exploiting the survivors after resettlement”,
the statement added.