UN investigators head to Sudan to decide if genocide took place in Darfur
By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 9, 2004 (AP) — United Nations investigators have arrived in Sudan to determine whether genocide took place in Darfur and investigate reports of human rights violations in the war-torn province, a U.N. spokesman said.
The U.N. mission in Sudan, meanwhile, is still being denied access to much of south Darfur and officials are concerned about the fate of thousands of internally displaced people who were kicked out of a major camp last week, spokesman Fred Eckhard said Monday.
The team from the International Commission of Inquiry will travel to Darfur, in western Sudan, on Wednesday and stay until Nov. 20 gathering evidence, according to Eckhard. He said the team arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Sunday night.
The United States and some human rights groups have already claimed the Sudanese government and an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed are guilty of genocide in Darfur. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the Security Council last week there are strong indications that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed “on a large and systematic scale” in Darfur.
The United Nations has called Darfur the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, saying the conflict there has claimed 70,000 lives since March — mostly from disease and hunger — and now affects 2 million people, up from 1.8 million in September.
Sudan’s government is accused of backing the Janjaweed in a campaign of violence — including rapes, killings and the burning of villages — to help put down a rebellion by non-Arab African groups. The government denies backing the militias.
It wasn’t immediately known how far the investigators would get because of the ban on U.N. travel in south Darfur.
That’s the region where a camp called El Geer was destroyed last week and its residents forced to leave. Some have come back but a U.N.-supplied water pump and generators there were looted.
The World Food Program said it has brought food to nearby camps and requested permission to distribute food to people who have gone back to El Geer.
The International Commission of Inquiry was established in response to a U.N. Security Council resolution in September. It is also charged with identifying those guilty of human rights violations and making sure they are held accountable.