The Sudanese government has resumed bombing civilian targets in the war-ravaged western region of Darfur, the United States special envoy for Darfur said on Friday.
”After a halt in the bombing between the beginning of February and the end of April in 2007, the Sudanese government has resumed bombing in Darfur,” Andrew Natsios told a news conference in Khartoum following a visit to Darfur.
”This should end and the ceasefire that was agreed to sometime ago should be respected. We urge the Sudanese government to end all bombing in Darfur immediately,” he said.
Khartoum signed a ceasefire agreement with the two main rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement, in 2004, but violence has continued.
A May 2006 Darfur peace deal was signed by only one rebel faction and since then rebels have split into a dozen or more groups.
Natsios said the bombing by the Sudanese military focused on the Jebel Marra region, a strong-hold of Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nour, leader of a faction of one of the Darfur rebel groups, and other targets in West and North Darfur.
”I think there were four attacks in Jebel Marra Mountains. We are troubled by this, because these have been stable areas before,” the US envoy said.
”And there had been other bombings, I think, in West Darfur and North Darfur of civilian targets,” he added.
The Sudanese military could not be immediately reached for comment.
The US envoy’s comments came as Britain, France and Ghana circulated a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council for a joint African Union-UN force for Darfur, which also threatened force against those who attack civilians, relief workers and obstruct peace efforts.
The resolution, expected to be adopted this month, allows the UN to formally recruit troops for the mission.
Under sustained international pressure, Sudan agreed last month to a combined UN-AU peacekeeping force of more than 20 000 troops and police to bolster the cash-strapped AU force of 7 000 already operating in Darfur.
The AU troops have failed to stem the violence.
International experts estimate 200 000 people have died as a result of ethnic and political conflict in Darfur since it flared in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms after accusing the central government of neglect.
Washington calls the violence genocide, and blames the government and its allied militia.
Khartoum rejects the term and says only 9 000 have died. — Reuters