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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 05/04
Darfur Rising: Sudan's New Crisis
March 25, 2004
Abstract
The international community can no longer ignore the escalating war in Sudan's western region of Darfur, which threatens international peace and security because of its cross-border nature, including refugee spill-over. It is described by UN officials as the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa. Diplomatic attention has been understandably centred on the IGAD peace process between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLA), but the scope and intensity of the Darfur conflict also demands immediate, focused action.
The UN estimates that in the past year the conflict has led to the killing of thousands of civilians, the forcible internal displacement of 700, 000 and the flight to neighbouring Chad of another 130,000, figures the government does not dispute. Testimony of displaced people and refugees depict a consistent pattern of attacks by a government-aligned militia, the Janjaweed, whose horse-and camel-mounted fighters use scorched-earth tactics, backed by government air and land strikes.
Survivors tell of Janjaweed assaults in which villagers are indiscriminately killed, whipped, and raped. Hundreds of villages have been burned to the ground after looting. Grain in storage or about to be harvested is destroyed. These tactics have led to the depopulation of entire areas inhabited by the Fur, Zaghawa, Massaleit, and other smaller groups of black African origin and are grave violations of the laws of war that govern internal armed conflicts, namely Common Article of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
