Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations Security Council to take action against what it claims are ongoing rights violations in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
The NGO made the appeal in Nairobi this week during the launch of a report on the political and humanitarian crisis in Darfur, entitled If We Return, We Will Be Killed.
The civil war between Islamic authorities in Khartoum and Christian rebels has been going on for 21 years.
Addressing journalists in Nairobi, Jemera Rone of Human Rights Watch (HRW) dismissed previous UN resolutions on Darfur as ineffective.
”The UN has not acted adequately on this issue,” she said.
Arab militias known as Janjaweed have been accused of terrorising members of three ethnic groups suspected of supporting two rebel factions — the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
Low-level conflict between nomadic Arabs and settled farmers from the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups has persisted for years. However, attacks by the Janjaweed appear to have been stepped up after February last year, when the SLA/M and the JEM took up arms against Khartoum.
Sudan’s government is accused of backing the Arab militias. UN figures indicate that about 70 000 people have been killed in the violence.
”HRW received numerous accounts of people who had attempted to return to their villages during the 2004 planting season in May and June,” notes the report. ”The vast majority of returnees were forced to flee again due to continuing harassment, intimidation and violence at the hands of government militia,” the report says. The 43-page document accuses the rebels of abducting civilians and stealing their property.
HRW believes the UN should extend an arms embargo on the Sudanese government, freeze the assets of officials and impose a travel ban on them.
For its part, the Sudanese government maintains that civilians in Darfur are going back to their homes at will. — Inter Press Service