A Sudanese army air and ground assault killed at least 45 people in the Darfur town of Muhajiriya, where bodies littered the streets amid burned out buildings, rebels who control the area said on Tuesday. ”Until now the number of dead civilians are at least 40, with 80 missing and a large number of injured,” the Sudan Liberation Army said.
Sudanese government troops and allied militia on Monday attacked a town belonging to the only Darfur rebel faction to sign a 2006 peace deal, rebels said. ”Government planes have attacked Muhajiriya, which belongs to us, and government forces and Janjaweed militia are fighting our forces” said Khalid Abakar, a senior representative from the Sudan Liberation Army.
Ethiopia on Thursday pledged 5 000 troops to a United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region. The 26 000-strong joint mission is to replace a hard-pressed AU force that lacks experience, equipment and cash and has been unable to stop the conflict.
International elder statesmen, including two Nobel Peace Prize winners, said on Thursday that Darfur was rife with violence and deeply divided after returning from the Sudanese region. They warned rape was widespread and being ignored by the Sudanese authorities and also urged Khartoum to hand over war-crimes suspects for trial at the International Criminal Court.
Sudan’s president has promised to pay -million in compensation to the country’s war-torn Darfur region, tripling a previous pledge, former United States president Jimmy Carter said on Wednesday. Carter also publicly clashed with a Sudanese security chief who had objected to the visit to a Darfur tribal chief.
African Union (AU) peacekeepers are outgunned and outnumbered by rebels and militias in Darfur, the AU force commander Martin Luther Agwai said on Tuesday. He said this was one reason an AU base in Haskanita, south-east Darfur, was overwhelmed so quickly during a recent attack on the peacekeepers.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would pull his country’s troops out of Darfur if it was determined that African peacekeepers who were killed at the weekend were not equipped to defend themselves. Twenty African Union soldiers were killed or injured and 40 missing after an assault on the Haskanita base in Darfur on Saturday night.
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/ 30 September 2007
Ten African Union (AU) soldiers were killed and 50 were missing after armed men launched an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan’s violent west in 2004. The AU called it a ”deliberate and sustained” assault by about 30 vehicles, which overran and looted the peacekeepers’ camp on Saturday night.
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/ 27 September 2007
Relief agency World Vision has scaled back its operations in South Darfur after its staff suffered three attacks within a week, an agency official said on Thursday. ”World Vision has not suspended operations — we have scaled down,” Michael Arunga, communications manager for World Vision, told Reuters. ”There have been three attacks in one week.”
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/ 25 September 2007
Darfur rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim said on Tuesday he will carry on fighting during upcoming peace talks until a final settlement is reached to end the conflict in western Sudan. Ibrahim also said he is dismissing his deputy, accusing him of secret meetings with the government to undermine the movement.