LIBREVILLE, 17 April 2004 — Forces supporting the Khartoum government have violated a cease-fire deal in Sudan’s Western Darfur region for the second day running, killing nine civilians, a Sudanese rebel group charged yesterday.
“The Janjaweed (pro-government Arab militiamen) and government forces have again violated the cease-fire,” said a spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement, Col. Abdallah Abdel Karim.
Karim, who was speaking to AFP in the Gabonese capital Libreville by telephone, said the Janjaweed had attacked the town of Doung-Diresa in South Darfur, killing nine people and wounding 13, all of them civilians.
He added that the militiamen had stolen livestock — 300 cows and 600 sheep and goats — from the town located 40 kilometers south of Nyala, the regional capital.
The JEM on Thursday accused Janjaweed militiamen and army troops of violating the April 11 cease-fire in an attack that left 32 civilians dead, although that report has yet to be independently confirmed.
In a surprise truce agreed last week under Chadian mediation, the government and rebels from the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) pledged to guarantee safe passage for humanitarian aid to Darfur, free prisoners of war and disarm Arab militias blamed for most of the violence there.
The cease-fire, which began on Sunday and is renewable every 45 days, is the third since the conflict broke out 14 months ago. The first two were short-lived.
The conflict, which the United Nations says is currently the world’s worst humanitarian and human rights catastrophe, has claimed more than 10,000 lives and displaced some 670,000 people within Sudan, while another 100,000 have fled to eastern Chad.
The humanitarian cease-fire agreement was signed on April 8 in Chad by the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and JEM.
This week, the human rights watchdog Human Rights Watch said the cease-fire agreement needed to be watched closely. “Without the international spotlight, the Sudanese government is unlikely to disarm and disband its Arab militia, re-establish security in the rural areas, or guarantee the safety of displaced persons who wish to return home for planting season-crucial benchmarks for any improvement in the situation” said HRW said in a statement.
