GENEVA, 4 December 2004 — The Janjaweed militia continued to rape women and girls in Sudan’s Darfur region last month while authorities forcibly moved refugees, the United Nations reported yesterday.
The information was collected from refugees by 16 UN human rights monitors deployed in the three Darfur states.
“They are reporting that sexual violence and rape continue to be reported in all three of the regions of Darfur,” UN human rights spokesman Jose Luis Diaz told a news briefing. “Every case is taken up with authorities,” he added.
The rapes had contributed to a huge sense of insecurity among many of the 1.6 million internally-displaced persons (IDPs) driven from their homes since the violence began in 2003.
“Women and girls are afraid to leave the camps,” Diaz said.
There was also an escalation during November in forced relocations in South Darfur, notably from camps of Al Jeer and Otash, near the capital Nyala, according to the UN spokesman.
“IDPs also throughout the region continue to fear and distrust the police. There is widespread impunity which is continuing with reports of police still refusing to record complaints,” Diaz said.
After years of skirmishes between Arab nomads and mostly non-Arab farmers over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels took up arms early last year accusing the government of neglect and of arming Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.
It said early last month it had not violated any international law or agreements by moving camps for people who fled their homes, and did not rule out repeating the move.
The violence in Darfur has created what the United Nations says is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Recent fighting had put civilians at risk in Masteri, south of West Darfur’s capital El Geneina, which rebel groups attacked, drawing retaliation by government forces who sent 18 mortars into the village, Diaz said.
“There have also been reports during the period of cases of abduction of civilians by the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) in West Darfur,” he said. “The situation is very complex and continues to deteriorate.”
The number of UN human rights monitors is set to double shortly to 32, but they remain basically helpless to halt violations in Darfur, where about 1,000 African Union ceasefire monitors are also deployed. “There is very little they (UN monitors) can do to prevent it while it is happening. Forced relocations are usually undertaken by police and law enforcement officials,” Diaz said.
German Troops
In Berlin, the German parliament unanimously agreed yesterday to provide up to 200 troops to help transport African Union soldiers into Darfur.
German soldiers will not however be based in Darfur, Junior Defense Minister Walter Kolbow told the Bundestag.
Germany will use two of its military transport planes to fly Tanzanian African Union troops into Darfur from Tanzania and a third plane will be put on standby.
The AU decided last month to widen its mission in Darfur by sending 3,300 observers. Around 760 troops from Rwanda and Nigeria are already in the region having been transported by France and the United States.
