EU: shortage of water and food in northern Darfur, Sudan

Yesterday, the European Union called for immediate end to "impunity" in Darfur and said "it is up to the UN Security Council to decide" on whether suspects should be taken before the ICC, but noted that the investigation commission had recommended this.

Also on Feb 4, European Union Commissioner Louis Michel strongly condemned recent violence in Darfur. He called on all parties to provide unimpeded access for aid and said he "deplored the further deterioration of the humanitarian situation, notably in Northern Darfur, due to shortage of water and food mostly caused the systematic vandalising of critical water points, accompanied by raiding and looting of crops."
- - -

LETTERS RE DARFUR TO THE EDITOR OF THE LONDON TIMES

February 05, 2005

Responsibility for Darfur atrocities
From Mr Tony Baldry, MP for Banbury (Conservative)

Sir, Five members of the International Development Select Committee and myself have spent the last three days in Darfur.

Wherever we went we heard eyewitness reports of attacks on villages, murder of civilians, rape, looting and a co-ordinated campaign of forced displacements.

From all that we have seen and heard, we find it entirely consistent that the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, set up by the United Nations, should have found that:

the Government of the Sudan and the Janjaweed are responsible for serious violations of international human rights . . . amounting to crimes under international law . . . these acts were conducted on a widespread and systematic basis . . . and therefore may amount to crimes against humanity.

The commission found that there was no policy of genocide, although it concluded that:

the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide . . .

If there are to be no further Kosovos, Rwandas or Darfurs, there must be no impunity for those responsible for such crimes.

The commission of inquiry has identified a number of perpetrators and the international community, including the UK Government, must ensure that those officials of the Government of Sudan and others responsible for these crimes are brought to trial as soon as possible by the International Criminal Court.

Yours faithfully,
TONY BALDRY,
(Chairman, International Development Select Committee),
House of Commons.
February 3.

From Mr Michael Kennedy

Sir, That the situation in Darfur is allowed to continue, and is in effect rubber-stamped by a UN inquiry that decides that genocide has not taken place (report, February 1), covers that institution in ignominy.

This is beyond my comprehension. How many more lives will be destroyed by fudge, complicity and self-interest?

The United Nations, born out of noble ideas, has failed. It must be replaced by a new authority which calls genocide by its name and calls its perpetrators to account.

Yours faithfully,
MICHAEL KENNEDY,
February 1.
- - -

880 slaves freed in Sudan but many left, says Swiss group

An old friend of mine is descended from William Wilberforce who spent decades, most of his working life really, abolishing slavery - and succeeded just before he died. It is dreadful to know that slavery is still going on in this day and age despite all the media, communications technology, laws, rules and regulations and decades of work by human rights advocates and agencies. Please read the following report out of Geneva via Reuters South Africa, confirming:

Some 880 slaves, said to have been abducted in southern Sudan by government-backed raiders, have been freed, but tens of thousands are still held in Darfur and elsewhere, a Swiss-based group said on Friday.

Christian Solidarity International said the government had transported 607 freed slaves, mainly women and children, back to southern Sudan from northern Sudan, while CSI had helped free 273 slaves, mainly boys.

"880 liberated slaves returned to their homeland of northern Bahr El Ghazal, southern Sudan, between January 23 and February 2," the Zurich-based group said in a statement. It has spearheaded a controversial campaign to buy back slaves.

"Tens of thousands of black Sudanese women and children remain enslaved in Sudan -- mainly in Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan -- notwithstanding the peace agreement signed by the government of Sudan and SPLA," it added.

"The majority of women and older girls said they were raped or gang-raped while in bondage," CSI statement said.

Sudan's government, which has always denied that slavery exists in Africa's largest country, set up a committee in 1999 to investigate and eradicate abductions of women and children.

The peace process has facilitated the liberation of southern Sudanese slaves, but "the capture and enslavement of black (African) women and children by government-backed Arab militias continues in Darfur", CSI said.

"The government appears to be using the same method against the African population in Darfur by arming militia. The description of the raids is identical," CSI's Sudan programme head, John Eibner, told Reuters.

But chaos in Darfur had prevented the group from doing the extensive documentation it had done in southern Sudan, where it documented 80,000 liberated slaves since 1995, he said.

Most had reported "gross abuse by their Arab Muslim masters", including beatings, death threats, forced Islamisation and Arabisation and racial and religious slurs.

'You are slaves, die like slaves' - Darfur refugees tell of Janjaweed killing spree

August 22, 2004, report by Kim Sengupta in Nyala, Darfur, copied here in full:

There is little left in Silaya except burnt-out huts and a row of graves in the fields beyond, the only reminders of one of the worst atrocities of the savage conflict in Darfur.

On 30 July, three weeks after the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, announced that he had reached agreement with the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, on ending the violence, the village came under sustained and murderous attack from government troops and their Janjaweed allies. Under a UN resolution, Sudan has until the end of the month to meet a set of conditions aimed at alleviating what the UN calls "the worst humanitarian disaster in the world".

This week, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, the latest international dignitary to visit the country, will tell President Bashir that his failure to disarm the Janjaweed remains the most serious unfulfilled obligation of the UN terms. However, the British government is expected to agree with Mr Annan that Khartoum has made efforts to rein in the terror unleashed on African villages and established "safe" areas, even though another 35,000 refugees, fleeing fresh attacks, are threatening to cross into neighbouring Chad. About 200,000 Sudanese are already filling camps to capacity there.

The Sudanese government, some argue, should be given more time. But the people of Silaya, in south Darfur, have a far different experience of the government. More than 100 people were killed in one raid. Most of them were shot, but 32 were tied up and burned alive. Twenty-five young women and girls were taken away; the bodies of some were found later. Also discovered were the remains of many who had fled the onslaught but were pursued and slaughtered.

Survivors say that the raiders had specific, targeted victims whom they hunted down and set alight - teachers, clerics and those who had returned after further education in the cities. In some cases, other members of the family were shot while one person was dragged off for burning.

Picking off the educated few in the rural areas is not a new practice. Influential figures in the Islamist administration and the military blame them for organising opposition to the government, and those taught in the past by foreigners are suspected of imbibing non-Muslim beliefs. Priests in African villages are particularly blamed for not using their influence to condemn the rebels.

Many of those who did manage to escape from Silaya had ended up in Muhajariya, an enclave south-east of Nyala, the capital of south Darfur, which is controlled by two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.

They are among 50,000 refugees driven into the area after government troops and their Arab militia allies burned an arc of villages around Muhajariya. The rebels, who have sparse resources and little aid coming in from the international agencies, now have to look after these dispossessed as well as their own fighters.

Commander Abdul Majid of the SLA said: "The attacks on the civilians are part of a military campaign. This war is not just against the SLA or JEM but against the people of Darfur. They are following a scorched-earth policy. They are burning the villages and driving the people into our area because, that way, they can finish off both the fighters and the civilians."

Babikir Ali, from Silaya, described how the village was attacked. "It was in the morning," he said. "We first had two helicopters which were flying very low. They fired from the air and hit some of the huts. Then we had troops in Land Cruisers, and the Janjaweed on horses and camels. They shot a lot of people before catching some others, putting them together and setting them on fire. It was a terrible, terrible thing."

"One of them was my brother," said Bahir Hashim al-Bakr. "He was a schoolteacher. When they arrested him, he was in the classroom. There were about 12 children hiding under tables and crying. They were all shot. They were looking for the educated people, the leaders we had. They're the ones who were being burned. I've heard about this happening at many places, but it is the first time I saw such a thing with my own eyes."

Yahir Ali, 33, recalled: "They were carrying matches and they set fire to people. Some others they threw back into the burning huts. They were shooting at everything and shouting 'Zurghas' [a pejorative term for blacks] and they were laughing, 'You are slaves, die like slaves'. My aunt was killed. She was an old woman and she had fallen. This man stood over her and just shot her."

The refugees at Muhajariya were not aware of the minutiae of the UN resolution or the machinations of the big powers. Asked whether they felt the government had made the situation safe for them, Babikir Ali smiled bitterly. "We are a problem. If we go back to our village, the Janjaweed will come again and kill off the rest of us. Then there is no longer a problem. Maybe that is what the outside world wants."

[Note to readers: apologies unable to credit source of report - misplaced link - will insert later if found]

Sudan: Survivors give harrowing testimony of Darfur’s year of hell. There’s nobody in El Geneina.

“A country of 46 million people is heading rapidly towards collapse, with very little attention from the outside world,” says Toby Harward, the UN’s deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan. “While acknowledging other crises elsewhere in the world right now, the scale of this crisis is unmatched, and it will have significant ramifications for the region and beyond.”

Read more from The Guardian, UK

By FRED HARTER
Supported by the guardian.org
Dated Saturday, 30 December 2023; 13.04 GMT UK - here  is a copy in full:

‘They told us – you are slaves’: survivors give harrowing testimony of Darfur’s year of hell

With the war in Sudan poised to escalate and the humanitarian crisis growing, traumatised survivors of a blood-drenched summer in West Darfur tell of their ordeal

There’s nobody in El Geneina. It’s ghostly quiet. It’s horrific to see areas once full of life now totally empty -Aid worker

We could hear gunfire for two months but our commanders told us it was a tribal conflict and not for us to intervene -Soldier at Ardamata garrison

A group in Wad Madani, in south-eastern Sudan, rally in support of Sudan's army in December, as the war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continues and refugees flee Darfur in western Sudan. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Gamar al-Deen was visiting a friend when gunmen poured into his neighbourhood on 27 April 2023. “I came back to find they were all dead,” he says. “My mother, my father, uncles, brothers, sisters. I wanted to die myself in that moment.”

Deen, a teacher, lost a dozen members of his family that day. Several of his neighbours were killed too. At his friend’s during the carnage, he saw a group of fighters strip a woman naked and then rape her in the street. “They told us, ‘This area belongs to us, not you, you are slaves,’” he says.

The attack was one of many by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary organisation, and allied Arab militiamen in El Geneina, capital of Sudan’s West Darfur region, between mid-April and mid-June. Their fighters carried out almost daily raids against areas of the city populated by the Masalit, an African ethnic group, according to former residents.

Gamar al-Deen, a teacher in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, lost a dozen family members on 27 April 2023 in an attack carried out by RSF paramilitaries

The attacks happened as the world’s attention was focused on fighting 700 miles away in the capital, Khartoum, as foreign governments launched frantic airlifts to evacuate their citizens. The scale of the tragedy unfolding in Darfur, a region ravaged by 20 years of genocidal violence, would only begin to emerge weeks later.

Sometimes the attacks were targeted, as the militiamen hunted down educated Masalits on kill lists. Mostly they were not. Masalit men and boys were accused of being fighters and summarily shot. Women and girls were killed. Women were raped near corpses.

Mahmoud Adam, a former interpreter with the African Union’s Darfur peacekeeping force, which left at the end of 2020, lived close to an RSF base in the city. He said Arab militia would arrive most mornings on horses and motorbikes before heading out to launch attacks on Masalit neighbours.

“For two months, this was their routine,” says Adam. “I would hear them talking about the number of people they had killed at the end of each day.”

The attacks started on 24 April, according to residents, just over a week after nationwide fighting erupted between the Sudanese military and the RSF. They culminated in mid-June, after the killing of the governor of West Darfur, a Masalit, which prompted a panicked evacuation of El Geneina’s Masalit residents to neighbouring Chad and the outlying district of Ardamata, home to a large military base.

Thousands of fleeing civilians made easy pickings for RSF fighters and Arab militia, who fired at the crowds and at passing vehicles, according to survivors. One witness described “a scene from hell” with dozens of bodies along the roadside and washed up on the banks of a nearby river, some with their hands tied.

The hospital run by Médecins Sans Frontières in the Chadian town of Adré received more than 850 patients with bullet, stab and shrapnel wounds between 14 and 17 June.

Sexual violence was a feature of the bloodshed with gunmen rounding up and raping women and girls.

El Geneina once had a mixed population of more than half a million. Today, its Masalit neighbourhoods are deserted. “There’s nobody there, it’s ghostly quiet,” says an aid worker who visited recently. “It is horrific to see areas that used to be bustling, full of life, now totally empty.”

Destruction in El Geneina’s marketplace after fighting between the Sudanese army and the RSF on 29 April 2023

The cycle of violence would repeat itself in early November after the RSF captured the military base in Ardamata, a few miles from El Geneina. The garrison fell amid days of killings and looting. Last month, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN’s genocide prevention adviser, warned that Darfur risked becoming a “forgotten crisis”.

Half a million people now live in hastily assembled camps in Chad. Cash-strapped aid agencies are struggling to respond: the refugees do not have enough mosquito nets, blankets or water. About 175,000 are living in grass huts they weaved themselves.

A Sudanese refugee builds a grass hut in the border town of Adré, eastern Chad, where about 175,000 displaced people live in similar makeshift huts

“Nearly every person who crossed the border has some sort of trauma,” says Eric Kwakya, a psychologist with the International Rescue Committee. “They have seen terrible things.”

Sherif al-Deen, a social worker, was drinking coffee in an El Geneina marketplace when RSF fighters and Arab militia first attacked on 24 April. He raced home, narrowly avoiding bullets ricocheting through the streets. He spent the next seven weeks volunteering at a clinic, collecting the wounded and dead from around the city with a team of volunteers. Bodies were wrapped in blankets and loaded on to donkey carts.

Sherif al-Deen, a social worker, risked his life to help collect the wounded and dead

Sherif saw a group of Arab fighters fire on a crowd with a machine gun, killing eight. Several of his colleagues were shot. “It was very dangerous work, but I had to do it for my people,” he says.

Burying the dead carried risks. To avoid being targeted by snipers, mourners held clandestine funerals for their loved ones at night, says Abdulmonim Adam, a lawyer and human rights monitor, who attended a dozen night burials between April and June.

At one funeral, the mourners came under fire and had to abandon the bodies beside half-dug graves. “If they see you burying the dead – if they see even the flash of a torch – they will kill you,” he says.

One of the deadliest attacks came on 12 and 13 May. At least 280 people were killed over those two days, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Trade Union.

Sara Mohamed* described gunmen looting her home on 12 May. During the attack, they shot her neighbour’s 10-year-old daughter. “I rushed to hold her, to stop the bleeding, but she died in my arms,” she says.

Another young girl was wounded, and a woman was shot through the stomach. When the militia returned a few hours later, they shot Mohamed’s father and burned down her home.

The massacre unfolded in stages over several weeks. Throughout the bloodshed, the Sudanese garrison at Ardamata’s military base did not venture beyond its blast walls. “We could hear gunfire for two months,” says one soldier. “But our commanders told us it was a tribal conflict, that it was not for us to intervene.”

People trying to escape the violence in West Darfur cross the border into Adré, Chad, in August 2023

Mohamed and another woman interviewed by the Guardian were raped during the violence. Mohamed was gang-raped at knifepoint. The second woman was abducted off the street by a group of men, who covered her head and bundled her into a car. It was a targeted attack. “They called me by my name,” she says. “They said, ‘We know you are writing about the RSF on Facebook.’” Eventually she was driven back to El Geneina and dumped outside a clinic, hands still tied behind her back.

‘If they see you burying the dead they will kill you’: Abdulmonim Adam, a lawyer and human rights monitor who attended a dozen secret night-time burials

That was not the end of her ordeal. A few days later, as she fled to Chad, her vehicle was stopped by a group of armed Arab villagers. They shot the car’s two male occupants. Then two of the villagers took turns raping her and the other female passenger, a 13-year-old girl, beneath a tree.

One of the attackers was middle-aged; the other looked about 18. “I heard the man talking about how happy he was to rape such a young girl,” she says.

She still receives threatening social media messages from unidentified men in El Geneina. A recent voice note sent on WhatsApp said: “We will find you in Chad. You are a slut. Whenever you come back to Sudan, we will do what we want with you.”

Six months on, Sudan’s war is poised to escalate. Having captured most of Darfur, the RSF appears to be cementing its grip over Khartoum. This month, the paramilitaries took Wad Madani, the country’s second city, which had been hosting 500,000 refugees from Khartoum and serving as a logistics hub for aid agencies.

Close to 7 million people have been uprooted across Sudan, the world’s biggest displacement crisis. More than half the population need aid, and 3.5 million children under five are malnourished.

“A country of 46 million people is heading rapidly towards collapse, with very little attention from the outside world,” says Toby Harward, the UN’s deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan. “While acknowledging other crises elsewhere in the world right now, the scale of this crisis is unmatched, and it will have significant ramifications for the region and beyond.”

Sudanese refugees wait for UN World Food Programme food distribution in Adré

The international response to the crisis in Darfur has been “completely absent”, says Cameron Hudson, a former White House official. Hudson is critical of US-led attempts to mediate an “elite deal” between the RSF and the Sudanese military. “The US is worried the RSF won’t keep showing up if it holds them responsible for their atrocities and introduces sanctions,” he says. “They are holding the US government hostage.”

Meanwhile, among the Sudanese refugees camping in the desert in Chad, unease is growing. “Even here, I do not feel safe,” says Gamar al-Deen, the teacher.

* Name has been changed to protect identity

Rape, murder, looting: massacre in Ardamata is the latest chapter in Darfur’s horror story Read more

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

View original: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/dec/30/survivors-give-harrowing-testimony-of-darfur-sudan-year-of-hell

ENDS

Sudan: Army outnumbered on Khartoum's streets

Report at BBC News World Africa

Published Saturday 24 June 2023 - here is a full copy:

Sudan conflict: Army outnumbered on Khartoum's streets

IMAGE SOURCE, 

GETTY IMAGES

The Sudanese army's infantry battalions have hardly been present on the streets of Khartoum during the two months-long conflict that has raged in the country, leaving much of the capital under the control of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

This is despite the fact that the army is made up of about 200,000 soldiers, roughly twice the size of the RSF.

Yet the army is heavily outnumbered on the streets of Khartoum, as well as the two cities across the River Nile - Bahri and Omdurman.

RSF fighters were initially moving the three cities in their armed pick-up vehicles, but they now mostly do so in ordinary cars. 

Huge numbers of people have complained on social media about the RSF stealing their cars from their homes. The suspicion is that the RSF is using them to avoid being hit by air strikes.

With its airpower being its greatest strength, the military has been constantly carrying out strikes to weaken the RSF. Although they are believed to have killed hundreds of civilians, they have not prevented the paramilitaries from advancing in Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman.

In a serious blow to the army, RSF fighters carried out an assault earlier this month on al-Yarmouk, one of Sudan's biggest military complexes, where arms were manufactured and stored.

While a fire raged at the complex for days, the RSF declared that it had seized control of it, which was confirmed by local residents. The military, however, has not confirmed the loss of the complex. 

It launched a counter-offensive, but could only manage in briefly wresting control of a vitally important bridge that linked RSF fighters in Omdurman to those in Khartoum and Bahri.

The RSF is also in control of other key sites in and around the three cities, including:

• the main oil terminal, which the paramilitaries have turned into their base
• the state media's headquarters, giving the RSF control of its radio airwaves, although the army has managed to retain control of the TV station by broadcasting from elsewhere
• a large part of the presidential complex
• much of the international airport, which has been shut since the conflict started.

The headquarters of the spy agency was also said to have been occupied by the RSF early in the conflict, but it is unclear who is currently in control of it. 

The military is known to have held on to a few key places - the most important of which are its headquarters and the airbase in Wadi Saeedna, from where its fighter jets fly to hit the RSF.

Troops have dug long and deep trenches to prevent the paramilitaries from overrunning the two locations.

"Their attempt to attack us does not have any effect now. The shells they fire fall on trees, or are cold by the time they land on our side," an officer said.

History of racism

About two million residents, out of around 10 million, have fled the once-peaceful cities, abandoning their homes, shops and offices. Some of them have been shelled and bombed, others have been occupied and ransacked, with air-conditioners and furniture among the items carted away by the RSF.

For some, the failure of the infantry battalions to make significant battlefield gains is not surprising, as Sudan is not a democratic state with a well-trained professional army.

The army - like many other sectors of society - is still bedevilled by Sudan's history of racism, slavery and colonialism.

It dates back more than two centuries when Ottoman and Egyptian conquerors established an army of slaves.

Recruitment from mostly poor black African communities continued under British rule, and has remained so throughout the post-independence era. Some of the soldiers are, in fact, descendants of slaves.

Under the three decades-long rule of ex-President Omar al-Bashir, black Africans were rarely accepted in Sudan's military college, with applicants required to mention their ethnic groups.

As a result, only a few have risen to senior ranks, with the army largely under the control of generals from the Arab and Nubian elites bordering Egypt.

IMAGE SOURCE, 

GETTY IMAGES

Image caption, 

Both residential and commercial areas have been devastated by the fighting

Soldiers earn a mere $11 (£8.5) to $16 a month, in contrast with the generals who have enriched themselves by setting up companies and factories that have given them control of 80% of the economy, according to Sudan's short-lived civilian Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok.

Because of their low pay, some soldiers even joined the RSF to fight - at one point, as part of the Saudi-Emirati coalition in Yemen, in exchange for vast sums of cash.

RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo became a big gold trader when his forces took over Sudan's most lucrative gold mines in 2017, and control of the border with Chad and Libya.

Sudan's army chief of staff did not like it - he wanted the money from the gold trade to go to strengthening the regular forces, but Bashir had confidence in the RSF, giving Hemedti the nickname "Himayti", meaning "My Protector".

Training camps were set up near Khartoum. Hundreds of Land Cruiser pick-up trucks were imported and fitted with machine guns.

With an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 men and more than 10,000 armed pick-up trucks, the RSF became Sudan's de facto infantry.

Arabs from Darfur form the backbone of the RSF. They appear to believe that it is now their turn to rule - especially after their pivotal role in helping the military fight the Darfuri rebels in the 2000s. 

One of the RSF's greatest strength lies in the fact that many of its "battalions" are made up of members of the same family or ethnic group, so they fight ferociously to protect each other.

In contrast, the defence minister has been forced to call for the mobilisation of retired officers and soldiers to beat back the RSF.

His appeal was met with derision by many Sudanese, who saw it as further proof of the army's weaknesses.

The reality is that Sudan's army, rather than fighting wars on its own, has long relied on militias. This is something it did in the decades-long civil war, which ended with South Sudan gaining independence in 2011, and more recently in Darfur, where Arab militias were accused of committing a genocide.

Now those militias - heavily armed by the military - have come back to haunt it, plunging Sudan into its latest crisis. 

Related Topics

Sudan

More on this story

Why an accountant has taken up arms in Darfur
Published 17 May 2023

What is going on in Sudan? A simple guide
Published 24 April 2023

How unsung heroes are keeping Sudanese alive
Published 21 April 2023

The two generals fighting over Sudan's future
Published 17 April 2023

View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65962771

[Ends]

Janjaweed women complicit in rape, says Amnesty report

What on earth is this? Women involved in systematic dehumanisation of women to inflict fear and force them to leave their communities, humiliating the men in their communities? Can this really be true? Amnesty International, in a report* dated 19 July 2004, says while African women in Darfur were being raped by the Janjaweed militiamen, Arab women stood nearby and sang for joy.

Read more in following excerpt from 20 July 2004 article* in The Guardian by Jeevan Vasagar and Ewen MacAskill published today 10 January 2006 by Assyrian International News Agency:

The songs of the Hakama, or the "Janjaweed women" as the refugees call them, encouraged the atrocities committed by the militiamen. The women singers stirred up racial hatred against black civilians during attacks on villages in Darfur and celebrated the humiliation of their enemies, the human rights group said.

"[They] appear to be the communicators during the attacks. They are reportedly not actively involved in attacks on people, but participate in acts of looting." Amnesty International collected several testimonies mentioning the presence of Hakama while women were raped by the Janjaweed. The report said:"Hakama appear to have directly harassed the women [who were] assaulted, and verbally attacked them."

During an attack on the village of Disa in June last year, Arab women accompanied the attackers and sang songs praising the government and scorning the black villagers.

According to an African chief quoted in the report, the singers said: "The blood of the blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be in their land. The power of [Sudanese president Omer Hassan] al-Bashir belongs to the Arabs and we will kill you until the end, you blacks, we have killed your God."

The chief said that the Arab women also racially insulted women from the village: "You are gorillas, you are black, and you are badly dressed."

The Janjaweed have abducted women for use as sex slaves, in some cases breaking their limbs to prevent them escaping, as well as carrying out rapes in their home villages, the report said.

The militiamen "are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish", a 37-year-old victim, identified as A, is quoted as saying in the report, which was based onmore than 100 testimonies from women in the refugee camps in neighbouring Chad.

Pollyanna Truscott, Amnesty International's Darfur crisis coordinator, said the rape was part of a systematic dehumanisation of women. "It is done to inflict fear, to force them to leave their communities. It also humiliates the men in their communities."
- - -

*Sudan Watch Editor's Note 11 January 2006: Thanks to notes I've received from Eugene Oregon of Coalition for Darfur and Eric Jon Magnuson of Passion of the Present the above item now contains links to Amnesty International's report and The Guardian article originally published July 2004. Assyrian International Agency's article is dated 10 January 2006.

Is Sudan peace real or just a mirage? 4,000 flee LRA raids in Southern Sudan

Last August, I started a blog called Uganda Watch for the filing of reports about a savagely violent rebel group called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and other news highlighting the terrible situation in northern Uganda.

[Background info: In September of last year, the UN warned that northern Uganda was the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world - 20,000 children suffering - 90% of the population sheltering in 180 refugee camps - 1.6 million fled their homes - 30,000 abducted as slaves and soldiers.

The war between the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF) and the LRA has been going on for 18 years. There is a history of tension between the north and south. In 1986, Yoweri Museveni, who is from the south, took power and set about trying to control the Acholi in the north. The LRA dominates resistance fighting, so it says, to reclaim Uganda for the Acholi. Now led by Joseph Kony, it is one of the world's most brutal armies and has terrorised its own people. At least 25,000 children have been abducted, the boys ordered to kill or be killed, the girls used as sex slaves. 500,000 people - mostly children - have been killed in the conflict.]


Photo: A Ugandan soldier walks past a charred body, Feb 23, 2004, in the Barlonyo camp 26 kilometers north of the Lira in northen Uganda after a massacre believed to be committed by the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group in which at least 200 people were killed. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

Here today at Sudan Watch, I am posting some news reports on the LRA - along with three opinion pieces by Sudanese blogger Joseph Oloya Hakim. Please bear in mind, the LRA received weapons and training from Sudan's Islamist regime throughout the 1990s. Joseph believes the LRA are still supported by the Khartoum regime.

4,000 flee LRA raids in Southern Sudan

An Associated Press report May 5, 2005 says the UN confirms thousands of Sudanese have fled their homes in the south to escape increasing and brutal raids on their villages by Ugandan rebels.

A report at AllAfrica, May 7, 2005 covers the same story, saying thousands of villagers have fled their homes to escape attacks by the LRA in southern Sudan. The report explains, in the last week thousands of Sudanese have been forced to cross to Kitgum inside Uganda following stepped up attacks by LRA in different parts of the war ravaged south. It goes on to say:

The UN estimates more than 4,000 people have arrived at the refugee transit centre at Palorinya in northern Uganda seeking protection," UN spokeswoman Radhia Achouri said. Many of the refugees said they had seen LRA rebels hacking people to death, cutting their lips off and burning homes, Achouri said. Most of the refugees were in bad health on arrival, she said.

Photo: Two young boy's get treated for severe burn wounds in the Lira hospital in northern Uganda, Feb 23, 2004, after a massacre believed to be committed by the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group in the Barlonyo camp 26 kilometers north of the town that killed at least 200 people. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)
- - -

Is Sudan peace real or just a mirage?

Here below is a copy of a first person account published May 8, 2005 by blogger Joseph Oloya Hakim, a native of Sudan and a staff worker for Servlife Africa. Joseph's post provides an insight into what is happening with returnees to Sudan, and the LRA from Uganda. Joseph believes the Khartoum regime are arming and supporting the LRA and says:

"It is becoming clear that the Arab government in Khartoum is still fighting a proxy war using the Uganda Opposition, the LRA, that is has supported for long."

Photo: Joseph of ServLife Workers

In his post of May 8. 2005 titled "Is Sudan peace real or just a mirage?" [click on the photo in the post - it is of a child with a mutilated mouth, presumably caused by LRA rebels who hack people to death or chop off lips and/or ears]. Joseph writes the following:

There is a growing speculation that the long fought war in South Sudan is not over yet. With the increasing attacks by the LRA on civilian population in Southern Sudan sparking another wave of 4000 refugees fleeing across the boarder into Uganda reported a local new paper on 7th May, 2005. It is becoming clear that the Arab government in Khartoum is still fighting a proxy war using the Uganda Opposition, the LRA, that is has supported for long. I have given considerable time on some of these attacks in my previous bloogs.

Reports incicates that refugees reported they saw people being hacked to death others mutilated as they flee. Similarly with the growing concern that Paulino Matip, a former Major General in Sudanese Army who at one time was a power rival with Riak comianding loyal militias in the western Nuer: Unity State, moving in and stationing his troops in and around Bentieu Oilfields at a time when the North and South Peace deal has to be consolidated indicates the cosmetic nature of the agreement that was signed on 9th January 2005 to end 20 years of hostilities in Sudan. It is still unclear as to why the two Sudan backed groups are militarily active when there was suppose to be unilateral ceasefire in the whole South Sudan.
- - -

How Sudan returnees cope with LRA insecurity and meagre food rations

Read Joseph's post May 2, 2005 and see how Sudan returnees cope with LRA insecurity and meagre food rations. The post is copied here in full incase the link to Joseph's blog becomes broken:

After the Indiana team have successfully completed a one week Medical Outreach Program in Sudan refugee camp in Uganda and having had earlier considered doing similar outreach in South Sudan, I decided to Plan a trip to Nimule a boarder town at Uganda/Sudan boarder where Servlife Africa plans to host the next round of medical outreach. The trip itself is an exhilarating as well as an agonizing experience.

One of the few joys of Sudan trip is after 20 years in refugee camps, many Sudanese Voluntary Returnees are making back home. The joy of returning written on the faces of these returnees is something that automatically sparks joy in my heart too. Nevertheless, while most returnees are happy that they are back in their country following attacks and displacements in their Camps in Uganda by the LRA (The Lords Resistance Army) a shadowy Uganda rebel groups known for their atrocities in Northern Uganda, the uncertainties in which most of these returnees live in Sudan is something that is worrying.

Most of these returnees are going back to their traditional home places but are not being provided adequate protections. The fertile areas East of the Nile where most of these returnees are going back are areas that are infected by the LRA. These areas serve as Safe Heavens for the LRA as they are being re-armed by the Sudan Government.

While I was in Sudan, the LRA attached Nimule 3 consecutive days: killing one SPLA soldier and 3 civilian on the first day of attack; and abducted 9 civilians in the following attacks and the reports indicated that all the abductees were harked to death. Previously the LRA had attacked several returnee villages; killed and abducted many. "This turn of events is a worrying development for us" said one village leader.

"We returned hopping we shall be safe here but it is clear now that the Sudan Peace is a private agreement between Garang and Bashir: not for us; otherwise, why are we returnee civilians not being protected from attacks by the LRA?"

Besides the LRA insecurity, most of the returnees do not have returnee packages: no food and the refugee women I met collected wild leaves (View on Servlife Africa Photo Album) which they were preparing to cook. The returnees told me that at return a family just receives 5kg of Maize and nothing else and the 5kg depletes in 3 or 4 days.

Because of the LRA insecurity and the Landmines, the returnees could not venture in to the forest to collect wild fruits and wild vegetables. The medical services are poor and remote too and most returnees are likely to face a disaster if no helps come their way in terms of supplies and civilian protection.

By all standards, I may say the returnees situations are worst than in Refugee camps in Uganda.
- - -

Focus on Darfur and countdown to current genocide?

Note this post by Joseph entitled "Focus on Darfur and countdown to current genocide?" May 5, 2005 [Joseph writes "the LRA attacks on returnee civilian is a political one pinning the Khartoum Government"] - copy in full:

At present the Sudan Government assertions of its authority in Darfur has focused on strengthening the military and establishing direct control with governors appointed form outside the region. The land issue remains unresolved, fighting still going on, government refusing to admit that is fighting anyone other that the bandits, the Fur formed Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance that joined the National Democratic Alliance that began military training in Eritrea in 1997. Rising insecurity engulfed the Masalit in 1998-9 when disputes with Rizaiqat resulted in over 100,000 internally displaced and several hundreds refugees fled to Chad. The government has insisted that it was tribal clashes.

Successive governments in Khartoum have tried to dismiss fighting that broke in the north and South as merely tribal clashes although they have fuelled such fighting with official and semi-official support to so called tribal militias.

Often times, appeals to Islam and Pan Arabism have been used by Khartoum Government to overcome the discontent of marginality elsewhere in the North. These appeals are not only to home grown support but increasingly about access to external powerful allies.

The power of Pan Arabist ideology, however fictitious its actual base, can connect local groups to a wider international community and offers them opportunity to mobilize support for internal conflicts. We have noted: the alliance of Arab tribes in Darfur appealing to Libya outside Sudan and the UMMA and NIF parties inside Sudan; Sadiq rallying Arab North to retake Kurmuk from SPLA forces, the successive governments were appealing to wealthy Muslim States for military hardware in the face of Anti-Arab insurgency in the South etc. etc.

With the above background, it would be naive to see the unfolding events in Darfur outside the policy of successive governments in Khartoum. Government in the West wants the definition of the word to classify the deaths and suffering of Darfurians whether it qualifies to be called Genocide or not. By the sheer scale of death, emptying of villages by para military groups supported by Behsir’s regime, as well as the willingness of the government to wipe out the black population of Darfur, nothing could be outside the term Genocide. The world has failed its mission; Rwanda has taken place in Sudan, and still no concrete action unfolding. More people have died and more will die and the world has sacrificed the Sudanese People on the alter of Islamic terrorism.

Sometimes, it is difficult to be thoroughly objective in a situation like Sudan. Although the North - South problems have reached a stage where no parties expect resumption of hostilities, The LRA attacks on returnee civilians is a political one pinning the Khartoum Government. Most South Sudanese believe that what Khartoum government did not achieve through military means, it is pushing to achieve through the policy of destabilizing the communities. The presence of the LRA, which it has re-armed in the past and which it is still arming, in Sudan is an extension or rather the arm of Khartoum government. Knowing that there would be a referendum in five years and most communities are to vote either for unity or secession,

Khartoum government hopes that by keeping the support for the LRA active, it will keep most communities a bay in exile and they would not have opportunities to participate in the referendum on the South. What is still disturbing is the slow move by the International communities in consolidating that comprehensive peace agreement between the

Khartoum government and SPLA/M signed in January this year. Darfur Situation still captures the spirit and emotion of the international communities. Yes it is correct that efforts be put to bring peace to that part of the region, but with a closed eye on the south problems things will soon fall out of hands; particularly communities that do not enjoy protections would take up arms and they will fight for shear survival of their respective communities: if this happens, something both the International communities and the weak Government in the South of the SPLA would not be able to handle. It will on the scale be a replication of Somalia in Sudan.


Photo via Joseph's post with thanks.
- - -

Two Red Crescent staff members killed

Geneva (ICRC) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was saddened to learn of the killing on 1 May of two members of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society by unidentified individuals who fired at their ambulance in the area of Kassala, east of Khartoum.

Faki Mohammed Nour, the driver of the vehicle, and Hassan Mohammed Ali, a nurse, reportedly died from their wounds on the spot. Mahmoud Adam Idris, a Red Crescent medical assistant accompanying them, was injured and taken to a nearby hospital. The patient who was being transported remains missing and is believed to have been abducted.

The ICRC expresses its heartfelt sympathy to the families, friends and colleagues of the victims and hopes that the fate of the missing person will soon be elucidated.
- - -

Kofi Annan calls for more African Union troops in Darfur

Bearing in mind the above news re LRA, see what Kofi Annan said in this excerpt from an Associated Press report May 7, 2005.

The AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur needs to be strengthened but help from UN soldiers will be limited, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report Friday.

Mr Annan said although violence in Darfur was not occurring on the massive scale of last year, the general level of insecurity in Darfur was still hindering humanitarian aid and remained "unacceptable."

The UN and its mission in Sudan could, however, help the African Union mission with technical advice, training support, help in choosing police, by developing an expansion plan and by convening troop contributors and pledging conferences.

An even larger deployment of 12,000 troops would be needed to keep the peace throughout Darfur to enable the return of all displaced people by the 2006 planting season, according to Annan.

He stressed that although it would be up to the African Union to decide how to organize this, its leaders might decide it was time for the wider international community to play a part in this complex operation which would require "a substantial increase in resources," he said.

He said the UN peacekeeping mission to Sudan would only be able to offer limited help to the AU troops in the coming months because it needed to focus all its attention on monitoring a north-south peace deal struck earlier this year between the government and southern rebels that ended a 21-year civil war.
- - -

New Blog

Best wishes to Kukuziwa at Relief to Darfur? and thanks for the link.

Update May 8: I have just visited this link and was surprised to see a message from Sarah, the author of the blog. Sarah will be in North Darfur over the next two months. Be sure to read Distillations of Darfur. Hope we don't have to wait two months for Sarah's next post.
- - -

Tags: Darfur Sudan Uganda Africa