New fighting drives Sudanese into Darfur refugee camps

By SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN, Knight Ridder Newspapers

ISHMA, Sudan, Oct 1, 2004 (KRT) — Thousands of terrified Sudanese are again straggling into refugee camps in the Darfur region, driven from their villages by fresh violence that illustrates the challenges of ending the conflict here.

United Nations and relief officials said Thursday that there’d been an upsurge in violence this week in southern Darfur. Hege Ospeth, a spokesperson for Norwegian Church Aid, which runs a refugee camp in Bashom, said 5,000 new refugees had arrived from 10 villages that had been attacked by government-backed militias in the past week.

One of those villages, Tegla, was pillaged Monday by Janjaweed militias and uniformed soldiers, said Mirsal Ali Noradin, who arrived at a refugee camp Wednesday. He and his family carried their possessions – including four large beds, a dead chicken and two baby goats – on four donkeys.

“They came in the morning on horses, camels and Land Cruisers. Then they began shooting. Some died,” said Noradin, a grim look on his sun-weathered face. “They stole 15 of my goats. What you see is what we have left.”

In some cases, though, U.N. officials said the violence was apparently a result of clashes between the rebel Sudan Liberation Army and the government, which, if true, violate a cease-fire agreement. Both the government and the rebels blame each other for the violence.

The new violence comes as the United Nations weighs whether the Sudanese government has done enough to halt the attacks and disarm the Janjaweed. The government recruited the Arab militias to fight the rebels, but instead the militias targeted black African civilians tribally affiliated with the rebels. An estimated 50,000 civilians have been killed and more than a million displaced in what the United States has called genocide.

The United Nations has threatened to slap Sudan with sanctions if it doesn’t comply with a U.S.-sponsored resolution that calls for it do more to stop the violence.

The ongoing violence prompted renewed calls for more troops to monitor this Texas-sized region. There are currently only 300 African Union soldiers on the ground here, and their mandate is solely to protect cease-fire monitors.

“The mandate has to be expanded,” said Juan Mendez, the U.N. secretary-general’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide.

The AU force can’t do anything about militia actions “because they don’t fit clearly into the breach of the cease-fire,” Mendez said.

Villagers said Monday’s attack was the fourth on Tegla. The first was in September 2003, the second in June and the third in August.

After each attack, Noradin returned to the village to protect his fields. And each time, he and his family were forced to flee again to the town of Nyala, 12 miles away, to a refugee camp by the airport. In September, he returned again to Tegla because government officials came to the camp and ordered him to do so, he said.

“The government told us it was safe to go back,” said Noradin, before sliding off his donkey and taking off his bed and the two goats resting on it.

Sudanese officials have denied they’re forcing refugees to go home. But other refugees also spoke of the government providing trucks, food and clothes, as well as assurances of safety, to entice them to go home.

“This is the fourth time we’ve been here since September,” said Ibrahim Mohamed Suleman, 35, who also arrived from Tegla with his wife and three children on Wednesday. Every time he returned, he said, he found the Janjaweed’s camels and horses had feasted on his fields.

As he spoke, his wife, Hawa Umar, 25, unloaded their donkey and arranged their meager belongings on the hard earth. Under every tree, as far as the eye could see, other refugees were camped out. The lucky ones had small herds of cattle and goats that munched on the dry grass.

Suleman looked at the armed rebels nearby. They controlled this swath of South Darfur. Their tricolor flag flew boldly over a large hut. Yet he was uncomfortable.

“Even here it’s difficult to stay,” he said. “We are afraid of the government. Maybe we’ll be attacked here, too.”

But for Noradin, there was no other place. He wasn’t going to return to the camp in Nyala.

“If we go there, the government will take us back again,” he said.