US diplomat says fear of rape, killing preventing return to Darfur

KHARTOUM, Nov 20 (AFP) — A US diplomat said fear of rape, murder and a lack of food was preventing people returning to their homes in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region.

US diplomat Tony Hall, seen here in 2002, said fear of rape, murder and a lack of food was preventing people returning to their homes in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region. (AFP).

Returning from a visit to the region, US representative to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization Tony Hall said that villagers were afraid to return home for fear of further attacks and that their women “will be raped and their men beaten and killed.”

Tens of thousands of people have died and more than 1.6 million been displaced by the fighting which began when rebels rose up against the Khartoum government in February 2003.

Hall said lack of security “is an overriding issue … there is not nearly enough protection for the people to be able to return home.”

The UN has described the situation in Darfur as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

Food and humanitarian supplies continue to be needed in the region, he said, adding that the food crisis “will be with us for at least another year and probably two.”

Washington has described the situation in Sudan’s western region as “genocide”, with atrocities aimed at ridding the area of non-Arabs allegedly carried out by Khartoum’s proxy militias.

Hall described villages in West Darfur as burnt out and abandoned. “They were like ghost villages, the houses were destroyed, the land was barren and the people were gone,” he said.

Staff at a clinic in the Kalma camp, southern Darfur, told him how five women who went to collect firewood from outside the camp had been raped two weeks ago, one of many such reported incidents, he said.

One 18-year-old girl was reportedly gang-raped by eight men, who used a wooden stake to kill the child of a pregnant woman, he said.