Sexual violence raging in Darfur, says UN

By Andrew England

NAIROBI, Aug 31, 2004 (Financial Times) — As a UN deadline for the Sudanese government to improve security in Darfur ended yesterday, a senior UN official said there was still a “protection crisis” in western Sudan as sexual violence continued.

Authorities were also regularly pressing displaced people to return to their homes, even though most were too scared to venture beyond their camps, said Dennis McNamara, special adviser to the UN emergency relief co-ordinator on displacement.

“Attacks in whatever form on the displaced continue, particularly sexual violence and rape, [and] are undertaken with impunity. There is no functioning, independent national justice system in Darfur,” Mr McNamara said in Nairobi. “The government of Sudan needs to be pressed to take more effective preventive measures. Security needs to be improved, perpetrators need to be prosecuted.”

He added that refugees said the rapes were usually carried out by armed militia, often when women and girls left camps to collect firewood.

A July 30 UN resolution gave Sudan 30 days to take substantive steps to rein in pro-government Arab militias that have terrorised Darfur’s African tribes, and adequately to protect civilians or face economic and diplomatic action.

The UN Security Council is expected to discuss the crisis this week to decide if the government has done enough or if further action is needed.

Violence in Darfur has forced 1.4m people from their homes and killed thousands, sparking allegations that a campaign of ethnic cleansing has been conducted against Darfur’s African tribes.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs yesterday accused Darfur rebels of abducting a number of Sudanese relief workers and other violations.

The ministry said the workers were “abducted in two areas in south Darfur”.

In Rome, the UN World Food Programme said three of its Sudanese representatives and five from the Sudanese Red Crescent had gone missing in Darfur.