SUDAN: Militias kill 63, many of them children, in Darfur

Attacks in West Darfur have killed at least 63 people, half of them children, as rebels on Friday (November 3) accused Khartoum of remobilising Arab militia after suffering two military defeats on the Sudan-Chad border. Rebels from the National Redemption Front (NRF) alliance said of the 63 killed at Jabel Moun, 33 were children. The United Nations said 27 of those were under 12 and urged the government to protect civilians. The African Union said the attacks occurred on Oct. 29 near Jabel Moun, where rebel and government forces are present. Eight villages were attacked, a U.N. official said, sending a small number of people fleeing into Chad and thousands others seeking safer shelter around Jabel Moun and Seleha. A Sudanese army source confirmed 63 people had been killed but said the strike was in retaliation for a rebel assault on Arabs a month earlier. AU soldiers said the government was also bombing regularly in the area around and north of Tine town on the Sudan-Chad border. The last bombardment was on Oct. 23. Sudanese officials deny they have mobilised Arab militia and the army denies using its Antonov planes, which would be a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution. Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million forced from their homes in 3-1/2 years of revolt in Darfur. Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms accusing central government of neglect. Khartoum turned to militias, known locally as Janjaweed and mainly from Arab tribes, to quell the revolt. Those militia stand accused of a widespread campaign of rape, murder and looting, which Washington calls genocide. The government denies genocide but the International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes in Darfur. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Friday indicated the toll in Darfur had been exaggerated saying 10,000 people had died in western Sudan. At a news conference in Beijing where he was attending a summit of African leaders, he reiterated that he would not allow U.N. forces into Darfur, despite a U.N. resolution authorising 22,000 U.N. troops to replace AU peacekeepers. China, which has close business and diplomatic ties to Sudan, is a veto-wielding member of the Security Council and has been accused by human rights groups of protecting Sudan against any strong action over Darfur. But at the Beijing meeting, Chinese President Hu Jintao appeared to be nudging Bashir towards accommodation. An AU-brokered peace deal in May signed by the government and one of three rebel negotiating factions has seen little implementation. A government plan to disarm the Janjaweed by Oct. 22 has not occurred and a new rebel alliance renewed hostilities with the government. In fact since the deal was signed to much fanfare in Abuja, Nigeria, violence has only increased and a new war has broken out in North Darfur. The NRF defeated the government in two major battles in the past two months, top U.N. envoy Jan Pronk said. He was expelled for saying army morale was low, generals had been sacked and soldiers were refusing to fight in North Darfur.

ITN Source | November 7, 2006

Tags:. .deny. .regularly. .criminal. .broken. .refusing