KHARTOUM, 17 August 2004 — Villagers returning to their homes in Sudan’s Darfur region are living in fear of the Arab militiamen who initially drove them away, the United Nations said in a report received by Reuters yesterday. Sudan has about two weeks to prove to the UN Security Council it has made progress in improving Darfur’s security situation or face unspecified sanctions.
“A UN team reported on Aug. 12 that it found approximately 2,700 returnees in Sani Deleiba ... that lived in fear due to heavy Janjaweed presence in the area,” the United Nations said in a weekly report on the situation in Darfur. Sani Deleiba in South Darfur state is one of the places which Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail designated on Sunday as a safe area.
Rights groups and rebels accuse Khartoum of arming the Arab militias known as Janjaweed — a term possibly derived from the Arabic for “devils on horseback” - to loot and burn African farming villages as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The Justice and Equality Movement, one of two Darfur rebel groups, issued a statement yesterday saying the Sudanese forces and Janjaweed are harassing people in the camps in Darfur. “The Khartoum regime ... uses its accomplices from the armed forces and the Janjaweed to spread panic with the aim of emptying the camps on the pretext that the displaced returned of their own free will,” said the statement received by Reuters.
A top UN official in Sudan expressed concern on Sunday about the lack of progress in reining in the Janjaweed fighters in the area. The world body says 50,000 people have been killed and 1 million displaced to camps since fighting broke out between the government and the rebel groups in early 2003, triggering the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. About 200,000 refugees from Darfur are encamped in neighboring Chad.
Rwandan troops arrived in Darfur on Sunday as the first foreign force there, mandated to protect observers monitoring a shaky cease-fire between the government and the rebels. The head of the AU commission, Festus Okonkwo, said Nigerian soldiers would arrive in Darfur on Aug. 25 to complete the initial deployment of 308 troops.
Few of the displaced have tried to go home, despite poor conditions in the camps and the government’s attempts to reassure them that they will be safe in their villages. “IDPs (internally displaced people) continue to highlight protection concerns and to reiterate their unwillingness to return due to continuing Janjaweed attacks and continuing insecurity in some areas,” the report added.
Aid organization CARE International had stopped operating in the Kalma camp in South Darfur state after a man was killed there on Friday, an official told Reuters from London.
