SEREAF, Sudan, 23 April 2005 — Arab militias burned down a village in West Darfur state as a warning to its non-Arab residents not to return to their homes, a man from the village said yesterday. Ibrahim Adam, 23, took a Reuters witness to the freshly burned village, southwest of El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state.
All the about 200 homes had been razed, with blackened cooking pots and utensils lying around on the charred ground. No one was killed in Monday’s attack, Adam said. The village was deserted, because all the residents had fled across the border to Chad after militias attacked about a year ago.
They did not burn the village then, he said, but came back again on Monday to warn those who had returned from Chad to nearby camps that they should not try to go home.
“We saw the smoke and went there. We saw the whole village was burned,” he said. Adam fled Sereaf last year with his heavily pregnant wife after the Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, first attacked. He returned recently to Sudan and lives in a camp about 12 km away called Masteri.
More than 2 million Darfuris have fled their homes during more than two years of open revolt in Darfur.
Tens of thousands were killed in the fighting between non-Arab rebels and the central government, which the United Nations says armed the Janjaweed, who now stand accused of a widespread campaign of rape, looting and burning.
Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels, but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws. Adam says he wants to go back to plant his crops in time for the rainy season, in May and June, but now he fears the Janjaweed will attack other nearby villages.
Meanwhile, southern Sudanese villagers say government-backed militiamen are attacking them in an extortion campaign that is undermining faith in a peace accord meant to end civil war in Africa’s largest country.
Residents of Old Fangak, an isolated settlement in Upper Nile State, and aid workers say militia groups which are not signatories to the accord sealed in January pose a big threat to the oil-exporting country’s bid to end 21 years of conflict.
“There is a government militia group led by a man called Gabriel Tanginya who has been attacking our villages, and demanding illegal taxes from our people”, said Isaac Gatkho Kuol, an official in the village on the Zerafi River.
“People are always expecting Tanginya to attack this area... People do not believe there is peace, they do not read newspapers, they have no radio, they see no evidence of the peace so how do they know? We have to show them”, Kuol said.
Under security arrangements set out under the deal between the government and the rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, militia groups must join either the SPLA or government forces within 12 months from the signing.
But humanitarian organizations say militia groups like the one led by Tanginya are yet to join either one and continue to harass and rob the poor inhabitants of the area.
“Militia activities are still a problem,” said Klaus Stieglitz of German rights group Sign of Hope. “This taxation continues to place yet another hardship on a people struggling to rebuild their lives after suffering war and displacement.”
Khartoum denies militias are robbing civilians. “There have been clashes between tribal groups in the area but these have no connection to the government,” an official army source said.
Tanginya’s groups is one of several pro-Khartoum armed bands which did not accept invitations to a meeting in Nairobi this week where southern churches, political parties and voluntary groups pledged unconditional support for the peace accord.
Their militias’ involvement in the peace process is seen as vital because they also fought in the war and some fear they may be used by Khartoum to sabotage a southern authority due to be created, and likely dominated, by the SPLM in coming years.
There are no roads, no cars and no bicycles in this desolate region of Sudan. People have to walk, sometimes for days, through the sweltering heat and dust, risking snake and scorpion bites to get to the nearest big town, Malakal, 120 km away.
Locals also use the Zerafi to transport goods by canoe or motorboat. It is along its banks that militias erect checkpoints where they tax villagers boating to government-held Malakal.
