New Violence Deepens Darfur Crisis

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=8&u=/nm/20040811/ts_nm/sudan_dc

New Violence Deepens Darfur Crisis

By Nima Elbagir

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Helicopter attacks, raids on refugee camps and rapes carried out by Sudanese forces and Arab militiamen have worsened an already desperate situation in Darfur, humanitarian and rights groups say.

The United Nations has told Khartoum to curb marauding Janjaweed militia or face sanctions, but Human Rights Watch said Wednesday fresh atrocities disproved Sudanese government claims that security was returning to the western region.


"In many rural areas and small towns in Darfur, government forces and the Janjaweed militias continue to routinely rape and assault women and girls when they leave the periphery of the camps and towns," the New York-based group said in a report.


Human rights groups and Darfur rebels say Khartoum has used the militia, who Darfur residents call Janjaweed -- derived from Arabic meaning "devils on horseback" -- in a campaign to crush a rebel uprising and drive the region's non-Arabs from their land.


In a statement from Geneva Tuesday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs accused Sudanese forces of new helicopter attacks, denied by Khartoum, and the Janjaweed of raids on the ground. <snip>

Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Thursday August 12, 2004
The Guardian

Government-backed militias in Sudan are still attacking civilians and are "routinely" raping women and girls in the Darfur region of the country, human rights groups said yesterday.
The studies by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch came as Sudan was under growing international pressure to rein in the marauding Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.

The Khartoum government has less than three weeks to show the UN security council that it is making progress towards disarming the militias.

Sudanese officials yesterday dismissed reports of further atrocities and the president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused the US and Europe of exploiting violence in western Sudan for their own ends.
<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1281355,00.html


Sudan trying to keep Darfur promises, says UN
12.08.2004
1.00pm

KHARTOUM - Raids by Sudanese forces and Arab militiamen have worsened a desperate situation in Darfur, rights groups say, but the United Nations said Khartoum was making serious efforts to keep pledges to curb the violence.

The United Nations has told Sudan to curb marauding Janjaweed militia or face sanctions, but rights group Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday fresh atrocities disproved Sudanese claims security was returning to the western region.
<snip>

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3583848&thesection=news&thesubsection=world


By Barry Schweid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:40 p.m. August 11, 2004

WASHINGTON – As human rights groups demand action against Sudan, the State Department is informing Congress it is difficult to establish that the Khartoum government is trying to destroy the non-Arab community in Darfur.

And even if Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has been weighing a judgment for weeks, decides that Sudan and Arab-led militia in the province are committing genocide, the Bush administration would not be required to take legal action, the department said in an informal analysis obtained by The Associated Press.
<snip>

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20040811-1440-us-sudan-darfur.html


Sudan: UN Warns Of Hepatitis Outbreak
New York, Aug 11 2004 3:00PM

The United Nations population agency today called for immediate action to avert an epidemic of hepatitis E among people who have lost their homes in Sudan's Darfur region, a day after an outbreak of the disease was confirmed in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in all three of Darfur's states.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) warned that pregnant women - who have accounted for six of the eight fatalities in one camp where the virus has been detected - were especially vulnerable to the disease, which usually has a fatality rate of 1 to 4 per cent.

According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 625 HEV-related cases and 22 deaths have been documented in western Sudan. UNFPA and WHO both warned that the virus - usually transmitted through water contaminated with human waste - could spread quickly in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of IDPs live in overcrowded camps with poor sanitation.

UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said the threat posed by the emergence of the virus underlined the need for greater donor support for all sectors of the humanitarian effort in Darfur, which senior UN officials have described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
<snip>

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0408/S00099.htm


Millions of Locusts Headed for Darfur, Say Experts
By Phil Stewart
ROME (Reuters)
<snip>

"Swarms could get into Sudan any day, but we of course don't know when," said Clive Elliott, senior officer in charge of the locust group at the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
<snip>

"We have indications that swarms of locust devastating neighboring Chad may have also affected Sudan's western region of Darfur," Peter Odiyo, Director of the Addis Ababa-based Desert Locust Control Organization for East Africa (DLCO-EA) told Reuters.

"Since Darfur is considered as a war zone, DLCO-EA could not mount an air operation to control the plague. We cannot fly our planes into Darfur, because our aircraft are not insured to fly in war zones," he said.
<snip>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=6&u=/nm/20040812/sc_nm/environment_locusts_sudan_dc


Conference On Native Administration Of Darfur
Thursday, 12 August 2004, 2:32 pm
Press Release: United Nations

The top United Nations envoy for Sudan today attended the opening of a conference to review a draft law on the native administration of the Darfur region, where fighting between rebels and Government forces since early 2003 has led to what senior UN officials have called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

According to a UN spokesman, participants are discussing the draft law, which is based on earlier consultations with local leaders, taking into account recent agreements with the United Nations. Last week, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, reached agreement with Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on a plan of action by the Government to take “detailed steps” within 30 days to disarm the militias, improve security for the more than 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

That agreement follows the joint communiqué signed 3 July by the Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Government in which Khartoum pledged to disarm the Janjaweed, resume political talks on Darfur and protect those in IDP camps.
<snip>

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0408/S00097.htm