Sudanese forces say they have no orders to disarm militias: Amnesty
CAIRO, Sept 17 (AFP) — Sudanese security forces in Darfur claim they have no orders to disarm pro-government militias blamed for atrocities in the region despite mounting international pressure on Khartoum, the head of rights group Amnesty International said.
“The armed militia are still very much there,” Amnesty secretary general Irene Khan said by telephone from Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, where she and her team have spent three days investigating abuses against civilians.
An estimated 50,000 people have died and 1.4 million more have been displaced in Darfur, where UN officials say Arab militias have carried out a scorched-earth campaign of ethnic cleansing against black residents.
The government of Sudan is under international pressure to rein in the militias and stop the killing, which the United Nations says has triggered the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis.
And last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell described the situation in Darfur as “genocide” and blamed the Sudanese government and its proxy Arab militia the Janjaweed.
Under a US-proposed draft Security Council resolution expected to be brought to a vote Saturday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan would be asked to establish a commission of enquiry to determine if genocide has occurred in Darfur.
The Security Council passed a resolution on July 30 calling on Khartoum to implement a series of measures aimed at stabilizing humanitarian and security conditions in the region, including reining in the militias.
But displaced people living around Geneina told the Amnesty team that security forces insisted that disarming the militias was not part of their mandate, Khan told AFP in Cairo as she described the devastation caused by the conflict.
“We have seen the sites where villages have been burnt,” said Khan, adding that in some cases the only signs that the place was once inhabited was the sight of “broken pots or children’s shoes.”
In Gokar, a village south of Geneina, Khan and her team met a man who told them about how pro-government militias murdered 56 villagers who were buried by relatives in friends in a mass grave. The rest of the inhabitants fled.
The Amnesty trip came ahead of visit by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, who heads to Sudan on Saturday for a week-long mission aimed at protecting residents from the bloodshed and violence in Darfur