Darfuri says militias burn village as warning

SEREAF, Sudan, April 22 (Reuters) – Arab militias burnt down a village in West Darfur state as a warning to its non-Arab residents not to return to their homes, a man from the village said on Friday.

A displaced Sudanese man looks at his destroyed house after militiamen burnt the Sereaf village, in west Darfur along the Sudan and Chad border, April 22, 2005. (Reuters).

Ibrahim Adam, 23, took a Reuters witness to the freshly burnt village, southwest of el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state.

All the about 200 homes had been razed, with blackened cooking pots and utensils lying around on the charred ground.

No one was killed in Monday’s attack, Adam said. The village was deserted, because all the residents had fled across the border to Chad after militias attacked about a year ago.

They did not burn the village then, he said, but came back again on Monday to warn those who had returned from Chad to nearby camps that they should not try to go home.

“We saw the smoke and went there. We saw the whole village was burnt,” he said.

Adam fled Sereaf last year with his heavily pregnant wife after the Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, first attacked. He returned recently to Sudan and lives in a camp about 12 km (7 miles) away called Masteri.

More than 2 million Darfuris have fled their homes during more than two years of open revolt in Darfur.

Tens of thousands were killed in the fighting between non-Arab rebels and the central government, which the United Nations says armed the Janjaweed, who now stand accused of a widespread campaign of rape, looting and burning.

Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels, but denies any links ot the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.

Adam says he wants to go back to plant his crops in time for the rainy season, in May and June, but now he fears the Janjaweed will attack other nearby villages.