KUTUM, Sudan, 10 April 2004 — Sudan’s government says it is trying to disarm Arab militias who have rampaged through west Sudan, but residents here said yesterday they still feared attacks even when gathering wood.

“Young girls can’t leave the camp. We are scared to send them out. They rape them. We can’t send the young men out because they will kill the men,” said Fatma, an African villager clutching her infant, in a camp on the edge of Kutum.

Just a few kilometers outside the town, armed members of the Janjaweed militias, who have looted and burned African villages over the last year, watched from their camels unperturbed as a government convoy passed by.

The government signed a 45-day cease-fire on Thursday with two rebel groups in the west who took up arms a year ago saying Khartoum had neglected the impoverished region. The United Nations says the conflict has affected a million people.

But aid workers said one of Khartoum’s biggest challenges was to end the scorched-earth campaign of the lawless, mounted militias. They added that a food crisis was in the making unless the displaced felt safe enough to return to tend their land.

“The question is: will the government be able to control the militias, and will they be willing to voluntarily hand their weapons over when you are dealing with such a vast area and the government has such limited resources?” said a Western aid worker in Kutum who asked not to be identified.

“The problem is the word Janjaweed has become a coverall for so many things. There are militias that are outside the rule of law, and this is one of the things we are going to crack down on,” Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told Reuters as he passed the camel-riding militiamen on his way to Kutum. “It is a tremendous step forward,” said Ismail. State Foreign Minister Al-Tigani Salih Fidhail said the Khartoum government would commit itself to “all provisions of the agreement”.

Speaking on Omdurman radio from Al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur State, Ismail said conditions in Darfur would return to normal with fighting being halted during a renewable 45-day cease-fire.

The United Nations has said a Rwanda-style genocide could be in the making in the Darfur area and international military force may be needed.