Violence displaces over 3,000 more in Darfur-UN
KHARTOUM, Sept 5 (Reuters) – More than 3,000 people have been displaced since the end of August by violence in an area of Sudan’s North Darfur state, a United Nations report said on Sunday.
It said villages south of Zam Zam, 17 km (11 miles) south of North Darfur’s capital El Fasher, had been attacked, but a U.N. official said it was not clear yet who was behind them.
The United Nations says the world’s worst humanitarian disaster has been created by fighting in the western Darfur region that has displaced more than a million people and killed up to 50,000.
Sudan’s government has come under mounting international pressure to end the conflict and disarm Arab militias, or so-called Janjaweed, which have been blamed for much of the violence.
“Attacks on villages south of Zam Zam have resulted in a population movement of around 3,000 to 4,000 persons,” said the U.N. report, adding that half of those who had fled their homes had been moved to a camp in Zam Zam.
“There has been a sharp upturn in the number of attacks throughout the southern part of North Darfur,” it said.
SCARCE RESOURCES
Rebels took up arms against the government in February 2003 after years of low-level clashes between Arab nomads and African farmers over scarce resources.
The rebels accuse the government of arming the militias to loot and burn African villages, a charge Khartoum denies. It says the Janjaweed are outlaws.
Peace talks brokered by the African Union in the Nigerian capital Abuja have been dogged by accusations from both sides of ceasefire violations.
Rebel and government representatives were tightlipped on Sunday on the state of the negotiations, but both sides were due to meet AU negotiators to discuss proposed amendments to a draft security document mooted by the Union.
Rebels said only the government and Janjaweed could be responsible for the attacks near Zam Zam because it was too close to government-controlled El Fasher.
“It must have been government forces or the Janjaweed. No rebel group can go there because it is too close to the city,” said Abdulhafiz Musa Mustapha, a spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement rebel group.
Mustapha said fresh attacks had taken place on Sunday near the town of Jabalmoon, some 75 km (45 miles) north of the West Darfur provincial capital Geneina, but no reports of casualties were immediately available.
Sudan government delegates at the talks declined to comment.
The United States said on Friday it was preparing a new U.N. resolution on Darfur and that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell might address shortly whether the violence in western Sudan constituted genocide.
The U.S. Congress has already labelled the conflict in Darfur genocide, but President George W. Bush’s administration has not yet taken that step. Sudan denies carrying out genocide.
The U.N. Security Council threatened on July 30 to consider imposing unspecified sanctions on Sudan if it failed within 30 days to disarm and prosecute the militias.
When the deadline expired last week, the United Nations did not call for sanctions but sought a wider mandate for African monitors to stop abuses.