Janjaweed from Darfur 'targeting Chad' almost daily - HRW

Pro-government Janjaweed militiamen based in Darfur are carrying out almost daily cross-border raids on villages in neighbouring Chad, says Human Rights Watch.

HRW researchers said they had documented numerous attacks on villages just inside Chad by militias who had crossed over the border from Sudan. They said the militias killed civilians, burned villages and stole cattle.

Further excerpts from BBC report 5 February 2006:

The human rights agency's report found nearly half of the 85 villages in the Barotta region just inside Chad had been attacked and subsequently abandoned, with 16 villagers killed in a single month.

HRW said they were told by witnesses that those responsible were ethnic Arabs who wore Sudanese army clothing and spoke Sudanese Arabic.

Some attacks have also been carried out by Chadian rebels who operate from bases inside Darfur.

The report said most of the victims in Chad, as in Darfur, came from African ethnic groups and that the Arab civilians living in the same area were not harmed.

Human Rights Watch said tens of thousands of people in Chad had been internally displaced by the violence.

"Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad," said HRW's Africa director, Peter Takirambudde.