A human rights group has urged the United Nations Security Council to take immediate action to reverse continuing violence and insecurity in the strife-torn Darfur region of western Sudan to avert further displacement of civilians.
The Council will convene in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday and Thursday for a special session that will discuss the situation in Sudan.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a 43-page report entitled: If We Return, We Will Be Killed, released on Monday, said there was a continuing climate of violence and insecurity in Darfur. It called for an urgent deployment of an expanded international protection force, especially near the camps where many of Darfurs 1.6 million displaced persons (IDPs) live.
The Sudanese government continues to terrorise its own citizens, even in the face of the UN Security Council arriving in Africa, Peter Takirambudde, executive director of HRW-Africa Division said in the report and continued: Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated – and hundreds of UN personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens.
The UN mission in Sudan, meanwhile, said that insecurity remained rampant in Darfur and cited reports by the African Union (AU) on attacks in South Darfur in recent days.
According to the UN mission, aid agencies operating around Zam Zam camp reported an enhanced presence of armed tribesmen, adding that it also received reports of increasing pressure on refugees in El Geneina camps in the west to return home.
Leaders in IDP camps El Geneina said they were told that they must return to their villages, otherwise they would not receive ration cards, the UN mission said on Monday citing aid agencies operating close to the camps.
In its new report, HRW documents how IDPs who tried to return to their homes had been attacked again by militias locally known as the Janjawid. The Janjawid are allegedly allied to government troops who have been fighting against rebels, who in turn, took up arms last year in a bid to end what they said was discrimination and marginalisation of Darfur by the government.
When families try to go home, they are attacked again by Janjawid forces, said Takirambudde: The practical effect here is that this consolidates the ethnic cleansing.
HRW said that the recent raids and forced relocations in camps such as El Geir in Nyala, South Darfur, represented yet another phase of Sudans ethnic cleansing of Darfurs civilians.
Its important to understand that ethnic cleansing in Darfur consists first of forcibly displacing people, then preventing them from returning home safely, Takirambudde said: What we are seeing with these raids and tear-gassing of displaced camps, is the government violently relocating people to areas other than their homes.
The human rights watchdog group also called for an increase in the numbers of AU-ceasefire monitors and troops protecting them, and asked the Council to give them a UN mandate to protect civilians.
HRW also called on the Council to extend the arms embargo to the Sudanese government, impose travel sanctions and implement asset freezes on key government and military officials. They concluded by saying that Khartoum should provide reparations – possibly from the governments oil revenues – to persons who have been victims of abuse.
Kilde: IRIN News, FN.
Se også artiklen: Stop for våben til Sudan.
