Sudan jails some Darfur security forces – report

KHARTOUM, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Sudan said it had imprisoned some Darfur militia and police for crimes including rape, the first admission that government security forces have committed human rights abuses there, a Khartoum daily said on Sunday.

The al-Ray al-Am newspaper said Sudanese Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin [photo] assured the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s international observer Emanuel Akoy that the government did not tolerate human rights violations.

The paper added: “Two members of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) accused of rape are currently in prison, as well as two policemen accused of taking part in burning some villages.”

The PDF are official militia in Darfur where revolt broke out after years of conflict between Arab nomads and African farmers over scarce resources. Rebel groups say Khartoum has used armed Arab Janjaweed militia to loot and burn villages, a charge the government denies.

The minister also gave the U.N. observer a list of prisoners accused of being members of the Janjaweed, a term derived from the Arabic for “devils on horseback,” the report said.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said on Sunday that the government planned to disarm some of the PDF.

Two groups launched a revolt in Darfur last year and the U.N. says the fighting has sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with about 200,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad and more than one million displaced inside Sudan.

The paper added the minister asked Akoy to understand that the marginalisation and economic hardship in different areas of Sudan was not deliberate and did not especially target one group of people.