Darfur fighting, troop build-up blocks food delivery
EL FASHER, Sudan, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Tribal clashes, banditry and troop movements are blocking crucial deliveries of food aid in North Darfur state despite recent peace agreements, African Union and United Nations officials said on Sunday.
The African Union (AU) said it was investigating reports that 14 people had been killed in two separate incidents since Thursday near the town of Tawilla, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
Peace deals signed in early November aimed at ending 22 months of fighting and increasing humanitarian access have done little to improve security in western Sudan’s Darfur region, where hundreds of thousands of people rely on food aid.
“We are investigating a series of retaliatory tribal attacks that allegedly took place over the last four days,” George Learned, a United States officer attached to the AU mission, said at a weekly security briefing in El Fasher.
“Seven people were reportedly killed on two occasions during clashes involving substantial attacking forces of 20 or more armed men,” Learned said, adding there was also “a massing of troops of some sort” north of Tawilla, near the town of Korma.
Rampant insecurity caused by Darfur’s war between African rebels and the government has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to the United Nations.
More than 1.5 million people have been driven from their homes and the U.N. says 70,000 people have been killed by violence, hunger and disease since March.
FOOD AID BLOCKED
Tawilla sits along the main transit corridor westwards from El Fasher, but two weeks of escalating banditry and fighting in the area has turned the route into a “no-go zone” on U.N. maps, blocking access to some 150,000 displaced people.
“It’s a disaster to close that road because it prevents distribution of food to Tawilla and Kebkabiya, which are the main distribution areas for North Darfur,” said Janse Sorman, an official with the U.N. World Food Programme in El Fasher.
“We have the food and the trucks and the people, but when there’s no peace, we can’t deliver it,” Sorman told Reuters.
A WFP convoy of 25 trucks carrying 250 tonnes of food was due to leave El Fasher on Monday, but was on hold until the situation improved, leaving many without their monthly rations of cereal, salt and other foodstuffs, Sorman added.
The AU has a small force in Darfur to monitor an April ceasefire repeatedly broken by all sides in the war, but can only report violations and conduct “confidence patrols” in an area the size of France.
The African Union said its troops were due to increase from about 700 to more than 3,000 in the coming months, but 196 Gabonese troops who were due to reach El Fasher on Saturday have been delayed because of conflict in Ivory Coast.
Darfur’s Arab nomads and African farmers have fought over scarce resources in the deserts of Africa’s largest country for decades, but war broke out in early 2003 when African rebels launched a revolt against the government.
The rebels accuse Khartoum of neglect and of backing Arab militia known as the Janjaweed, who have conducted a campaign of killing, raping and looting against African villagers in what the United States has called genocide.
Khartoum denies the accusations, calling the militiamen bandits.
The AU said both rebels and Janjaweed were accused of carrying out recent attacks around Tawilla.
“It’s easy to confirm that an attack took place, but not who did it,” Learned said.