An upsurge in attacks by Darfur’s main rebel force, including the capture of a key government-held town, is undermining the latest internationally sponsored talks on bringing peace to Sudan’s western regions, according to senior United Nations officials.
Several thousand people, mainly women and children, have fled their villages and are walking towards camps for the displaced, adding to the 1,8-million who have been there since the conflict escalated two years ago.
The rise in violence by the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), the largest of the two rebel groups, comes after months of relative calm since African Union (AU) monitors fanned out across Darfur and the UN security council imposed a no-fly zone and sanctions on the Sudanese government.
The government has been blamed for most of the earlier violence and human rights abuses. Armed militias, known as Janjaweed and loosely linked to the government, were accused of mass murder and rape when Darfur hit the headlines last year, prompting the US to call the abuses genocide. At least 180 000 people died. But the latest violence, involving attacks on aid convoys and government officials as well as the theft of large numbers of camels — the main source of wealth for local nomads — comes from the rebel side.
In one assault, which sparked a chain of clashes, the SLA seized thousands of camels in a well-prepared raid on a nomadic tribe that had previously not been part of the conflict. Tribal leaders appealed to the AU, which publicly used strong language to denounce the attack.
The owners of the camels got help from the militias and converged on villages at Tabit, west of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, that they suspected of holding the stolen animals. An estimated 3 000 people then fled.
On Sunday, Osman Mohammed Yusuf Kibir, the governor of North Darfur, did not deny the attacks. ”But it’s not true the attackers were supported by the government. There was not a single soldier with them. The camel owners waited 13 days for the AU and the international community to respond,” he told The Guardian.
Separately, SLA rebels last week entered Sheiria, north-east of Nyala. Although they did not attack the government garrison, they paraded in the streets in a show of strength and claimed they had killed 80 troops. They withdrew the next day. The government said they had been driven out after ”heavy casualties”. AU monitors who talked to residents said that they had found no evidence of serious clashes or killing. – Guardian Unlimited Â