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| Africa: Horn |
| Sudan Might Force Non-Arab Refugees to Return to Killing Zones |
| 2004-07-31 |
| From The Washington Post, an opinion artice by Daniel Wolf, a Washington DC lawyer who has just returned from a fact-finding mission in Sudan with Refugees International. On the morning of July 12, hell descended on the village of Donki Dereisa. Shortly before sunrise, Fatima Ibrahim, 28, awoke to the deafening sound of exploding ordnance falling from the sky. As she emerged from her mud hut with her 10-year-old daughter, she saw fires blazing all around and scores of heavily armed men on horseback attacking from every direction. With bullets whistling past, Ibrahim and her daughter ran for their lives, ducking into a nearby ravine, where they hid without food or water for the next two days. From the ditch, Ibrahim witnessed a horrific avalanche of violence that will haunt her for life. With Sudanese foot soldiers at their side, the mounted attackers shot the panicked and unarmed villagers in cold blood. Approximately 150 people, including 10 women, were killed. But the worst was to come. Ibrahim told Refugees International about a week after the attack that among those captured during the assault were four of her brothers and six young children, including three of her cousins. As Ibrahim watched in horror, several of the attackers began grabbing the screaming children and throwing them one by one into a raging fire. One of the male villagers ran from his hiding place to plead for their lives. It was a fatal error. The raiders subdued the man and later beheaded him and dismembered his body. All six of the children were burned. Ibrahim's four brothers have not been heard from since. ... But recent events suggest that in making these commitments [to the UN], Khartoum's objective was to stall for time in the hope it might deceive the international community into believing the crisis had been brought under control. This cynical approach is graphically illustrated by the recent arrest and prosecution of a group of alleged Janjaweed militiamen on charges of robbery and murder in southern Darfur's provincial capital of Nyala. According to reliable sources inside the government, the "Janjaweed" were in fact common criminals plucked from a Nyala jail, who were informed that they would be sentenced to death unless they agreed to pose as Janjaweed and confess to the crimes. The true killers remain at large. Nor is there any indication that Khartoum intends to disarm or otherwise rein in the Janjaweed. To the contrary, the government and the Janjaweed have continued jointly and relentlessly to pursue their terrorist campaign in the few remaining regions of Darfur under government control where African villagers have not yet been driven from their homes. Ironically, at the same time that it has been sponsoring these assaults, the Sudanese government has been aggressively attempting to persuade the displaced people of Darfur to return home. But returnees have been killed, beaten, raped and threatened by roaming bands of Janjaweed. It is hardly surprising that most of the displaced have heeded the Janjaweed's warning and spurned the government's invitation to return home. The government, however, appears to be committed to its policy of repatriation, and there is a danger that in the face of continued resistance by the displaced it will begin to forcibly return people en masse and declare an end to the crisis. If that happens, they will all be vulnerable to the same kinds of deadly violence that caused them to flee in the first place. ... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |