Sudan says Darfur rebels killed 1,460 since April
By Nima Elbagir
KHARTOUM, July 28 (Reuters) – Sudan has accused rebels in the western Darfur region of killing 1,460 civilians since signing a ceasefire with the government in early April and of slowing delivery of aid to the region.
But one of two main Darfur rebel groups, who in turn accuse Khartoum of using Arab militia to crush them and attack civilians, said it had not launched any military operations since signing the ceasefire.
The United Nations says one million people have been uprooted in Darfur and 30,000 killed since the rebels took up arms in early 2003. More than two million need food and medicine, it says.
“The violations perpetrated by the rebels are delaying the humanitarian aid operations and the operations intending to establish security and the return of the displaced to their villages,” Information Minister Al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik said in the statement late on Tuesday.
His statement was the first time the government had issued a figure for the number of civilians killed.
A U.S.-drafted U.N. resolution, which Security Council members are expected to vote on this week, threatens Sudan with sanctions if it does not disarm the Arab militia, whose campaign the U.S. Congress has called a genocide against non-Arabs.
The U.S. resolution threatens unspecified sanctions against Sudan within 30 days if Khartoum does not prosecute the Arab militias, known as Janjaweed. The rebels say they took up arms partly to defend Darfur villages from the nomadic militias.
“Instead of using Darfur for electoral ends, as the American administration is doing, the world should push those involved to sit at the negotiating table,” Malik said.
African Union-hosted Darfur peace talks broke down this month when Khartoum rejected some of the rebels’ conditions for talks.
Adam Ali Shogar, a senior official in the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, said the rebels wanted aid corridors to be opened into rebel-held areas, where he said civilians displaced by conflict were under rebel protection.
“Those who kill the civilians are the Janjaweed and the government forces,” he told Reuters from the Chadian capital N’Djamena.