Darfur rebels say militias still on offensive
CAIRO, July 23 (Reuters) – Rebels in western Sudan said on Friday that Arab militias had attacked twice in Darfur this week, despite the government’s insistence that it is cracking down on them.
The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said the government had integrated more than 6,000 of the militiamen into the regular police, giving them uniforms and new weapons.
JEM general coordinator Abu Bakr Hamid al-Nur said by telephone that police including some of the militiamen, known as Janjaweed, had attacked a rebel camp on Wednesday in the Orshi area north of el-Fasher, capital of North Darfur state.
He said that two days earlier, Janjaweed had killed more than 30 people and kidnapped many women and children at Kfour, between el-Fasher and Kutum, about 120 km (75 miles) to the northwest.
The Janjaweed are at the centre of a conflict that has displaced more than a million people in remote Darfur and created what the United Nations says is one of the world’s most serious humanitarian crises.
The rebels and human rights groups say the government has armed and supported the Janjaweed. The government says they are outlaws and it has started a campaign to disarm them.
Nur, who said he was speaking from central Darfur, said: “The government is trying to go behind the bushes to commit their crimes.
“If they are serious about solving the problem, they should not deceive the international community. They should come to talk with us for real talks for peace.”
The JEM and another rebel group in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Movement, pulled out of political talks with the government last Saturday because Khartoum rejected their preconditions, including disarmament of the Janjaweed.
The rebel groups took up arms in early 2003 to protect the settled non-Arab people of Darfur from attacks by Arab nomads who have traditionally competed with them for land and grazing.
On Thursday the U.S. Congress passed a resolution saying that genocide was under way in Darfur — a description many international observers on the ground say is an exaggeration.
The African Union has plans to send a peace force to Darfur to protect monitors and humanitarian workers. Nur said an existing African Union presence was not sufficient.
“They cannot do their job fairly, because the number is very small and they haven’t the facilities to monitor because it is a very wide area,” he said.
“For that reason we ask the international community to come as a witness to what is happening in Sudan.”