Darfur rebels say govt attacks as U.N. vote nears

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Darfur rebels said Sudanese planes and troops attacked villages in the western region before a U.N. Security Council vote Thursday on the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to the region.

Rights groups and Washington have accused Sudan's Khartoum-based government, which opposes the U.N. troop deployment, of a huge military build-up in recent weeks.

The rebels said the new offensive began two days ago as government forces attacked and occupied Kulkul about 35 km (22 miles) north of Darfur's main town, el-Fasher. Read more >>>

CHRONOLOGY-Darfur conflict, peace efforts

Aug 31 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Thursday voted to create a United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur region.

Since the signing of a fragile peace pact in May between the government and one rebel group, fighting has only increased.

Here is a chronology of events since the peace deal.

May 5, 2006 - The government of Sudan and a SLA rebel faction sign peace deal. SLA rival faction and the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) reject the deal.

May 8 - Darfuris in Kalma Camp in South Darfur loot the African Union (AU) compound and beat to death an interpreter. Jan Egeland, the visiting U.N. under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, beats a hasty retreat in the face of violent protests. June 1 - Two Darfur rebel groups refuse to sign a peace deal ahead of a deadline set by the African Union (AU). Read more >>>

UN ponders deploying troops in Darfur

New York -
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday met behind closed doors to ponder a revised draft resolution which calls for deploying a robust UN force in Sudan's Darfur region and which co-sponsors hope to put to a vote on Thursday.

The amended US-British draft specifically states that the UN peacekeepers would be deployed "on the basis of the acceptance of the (Sudanese) government)," an effort to overcome Khartoum's strong opposition to the deployment.

The draft text calls for a 17 000-strong UN force to take over from the ill-equipped and under-funded African Union (AU) mission, which has been unable to prevent killings, rape and the internal displacement of civilians in Darfur. Read more >>>

Darfur: Displaced again and again

By Charlotte Brudenell, ACT-Caritas field communicator

In recent months, following attacks by armed militias in Chad, hundreds of refugees from Darfur have fled back across the border into Sudan. Too afraid of the militias to return to their villages, they are sheltering in the town of Juguma.

By Charlotte Brudenell, ACT-Caritas field communicator

Juguma, West Darfur, August 30, 2006--Twenty kilometers from the Chadian border, the town of Juguma is like a pregnant woman; it provides and protects and has somewhat expanded. There is no official camp for displaced people, but nearly half the population is providing a home to other families, with sometimes up to five or six families in the same home. Read more >>>

UN warns of new Darfur disaster

By topi and agencies

AID agencies are finding it hard as they are also hapless targets for the Sudanese militias.

The heat is intensive, water is scarce and residents must walk miles to get some.
The UN's most senior humanitarian official has warned that Sudan's Darfur region faces a new humanitarian disaster owing to lack of security.
Jan Egeland spoke as the Security Council considered a US and UK plan to send about 17,500 UN troops to Darfur.

He called for "immediate action" on the political front, to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe threatening "massive loss of life".

Sudan rejects transforming an existing African Union force into a UN mission.

Some 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2m driven from their homes in three years of fighting in Darfur. Read more >>>

In Darfur, the genocide continues

Darfur
Featured Advertiser


Darfur

Despite cease-fire, violence continues

If we turn our heads and look away and hope that it will all disappear then they will--all of them, an entire generation of people. And we will have only history left to judge us.

--George Clooney


A RAPED WOMAN or a dead man. That's the price of firewood in Darfur.

While the Sudanese government postures and the United Nations runs around in seemingly endless bureaucratic circles, Arab Janjaweed militia continue their tragic campaign of Muslim-on-Muslim ethnic cleansing against black Darfurians. Left with little protection from an overwhelmed African Union peacekeeping force, the Darfurians must fend for themselves. When a refugee family needs firewood, the women from the camp venture into the bush, knowing they will "only" be raped should the Janjaweed come. Their men would be killed. Read more >>>

U.N.: Adopt Resolution to Send Darfur Peacekeepers

New York, August 28, 2006) ?
The United Nations Security Council should adopt a resolution to send a 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force to Darfur as a first step to resolving the crisis, Human Rights Watch said today. The Security Council will meet today to discuss a draft resolution against the backdrop of rapidly deteriorating security in Darfur and a buildup of Sudanese government troops in the region.
"With the looming threat of fresh military action by the Sudanese army, the Security Council must deploy peacekeepers urgently to protect civilians," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Adopting a resolution is a crucial first step toward stopping the bloodshed in Darfur, but member states must also do all they can to compel Sudan to accept a U.N. force." Read more >>>

UN warns of new Darfur disaster

The UN's most senior humanitarian official has warned that Sudan's Darfur region faces a new humanitarian disaster owing to lack of security.
Jan Egeland spoke as the Security Council considered a US and UK plan to send 22,000 UN troops to Darfur.

US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer has announced she is staying in Sudan for an extra day in order to meet President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan rejects transforming an existing African Union force into a UN mission.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2m driven from their homes in three years of fighting in Darfur. Read more >>>

Darfur on brink of fresh humanitarian disaster -UN

UNITED NATIONS,
Aug 28 (Reuters) - Sudan's war-torn Darfur region is on the brink of a fresh humanitarian disaster threatening "massive loss of life," a top U.N. official warned the Security Council on Monday.

Without safer conditions for aid workers, greater access to those in need and an end to the violence in the region, the international humanitarian operation could collapse, threatening hundreds of thousands of deaths, U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said, according to remarks prepared for delivery to a closed session of the 15-nation council. Read more >>>

Time is Running Out, but Who Cares About Darfur?

By Alan Gray, NewsBlaze

Without question, George W. Bush has done more than any other president, and more than the American People to stop the Genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Jay McGinley, undertaking a hunger strike, in an attempt to motivate Americans to stand up and be counted today said "Darfur is the Great Challenge, and the Great Opportunity of Our Time. History will judge us on this, forever." Read more >>>

Darfur: The Final Decision

Paralysis at the UN as Khartoum prepares to resume genocidal onslaught.
Eric Reeves

The final moment of diplomatic truth for Darfur has at last arrived. All evidence suggests that the international community is prepared to acquiesce before the military onslaught Khartoum’s National Islamic Front is preparing for North Darfur, an offensive that will target both rebel military forces and non-Arab civilians who do not support the deeply flawed “Darfur Peace Agreement” (May 5, 2006, Abuja, Nigeria). Fighting in North Darfur over the past two months has increasingly involved collaboration between the forces of Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction leader Minni Minawi (a member of the Zaghawa tribe and the only Darfuri signatory to the Abuja agreement) and Khartoum’s regular military. This collaboration has produced attacks that have focused primarily on Fur villages. As Refugees International President Kenneth Bacon reports in a July 21, 2006 letter to President Bush (following an eleven-day assessment mission to Darfur):

“Minawi’s forces are attacking Fur villages in North Darfur. According to the United Nations, some of these attacks show the same signs of genocidal intent demonstrated by the government-back Janjaweed militia---the targeted killing of young men.” Read more >>>

The shame deepens

This week, though it seemed hardly possible, the shame of the world's indifference to mass rape and murder in the Sudanese region of Darfur has deepened.

The UN Security Council is considering yet another resolution to send peacekeepers to Darfur to protect the victims of the Sudanese government's depredations.

The government in Khartoum, dominated by Islamists, has dispossessed millions of black Sudanese of their land in the west, killing hundreds of thousands and using rape as a weapon.

And yet again, Khartoum has rejected the idea that UN peacekeepers might ever enter the country, cloaking its objections in complaints about colonialism and foreign interference in its domestic affairs. They prefer the African Union "peacekeepers" who are already there, under-equipped, under-manned and ineffectual.

That's how their own commander describes them. Read more >>>

U.S. says Darfur is getting worse

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States, which is trying to get Khartoum to accept a U.N. force in Darfur, said on Friday Sudan was preparing a new offensive in its devastated western province and that rebels there were rearming.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, who spoke before leaving for a visit to Sudan, said the situation was getting much worse in Darfur and a U.N. force was needed urgently to stop what Washington has called genocide.

Frazer said she would deliver a firm message from President George W. Bush, telling Sudan's government to drop its objections to the United Nations taking over from about 7,000 African Union troops struggling to keep the peace in Darfur.

"We believe that the time to act is now and that there can't be further delay," Frazer told reporters. "The security environment is deteriorating and deteriorating very quickly." Read more >>>

A duty to help Darfur, in spite of Khartoum

From Friday's Globe and Mail

The government of Sudan is being entirely unreasonable in opposing the deployment of a robust United Nations military force in Darfur. In fact, its bellicosity -- it has threatened to attack any arriving UN soldiers -- deserves the strongest possible condemnation. Is Beijing listening? Read more >>>

Aid agency warns on Darfur rapes

Aid agencies in the Sudanese region of Darfur say they are alarmed by a sharp escalation in sexual attacks on displaced women and young girls.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has warned that in Darfur's biggest camp for displaced people, 200 have been raped in the past five weeks.

It says this signals a rapid deterioration in terms of security.

Meanwhile, Sudan's ruling party has rejected a draft UN resolution on sending peacekeepers to Darfur. Read more >>>

Peace still eluding Darfur

IN THE MIDST of the turmoil in the Middle East, events in Darfur, Sudan, may have escaped scrutiny. Despite several efforts to halt the slaughter of innocent civilians, the violence continues unabated and remains a blot on man's inhumanity.


The United Nations (UN) reported recently that a peace deal signed three months ago between Sudan's government and the main rebel group has failed to halt violence in Darfur, citing an increase in rape and continued attacks by militias and rebel factions.

The global body said the May 5 peace deal, signed in Nigeria, was "doomed to failure" without more support from the Sudanese government, "with the population of Darfur continuing to suffer grave violations of human rights as violence among competing armed groups persists". Read more >>>

SUDAN: Children still victims of war

NAIROBI, (IRIN) - Children are still being recruited by the Sudanese army and various armed groups, despite the signing of formal peace and ceasefire agreements, a United Nations report has found.

"It is clear that thousands of children are still associated with armed forces in southern Sudan, awaiting demobilisation," UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said in a report released on Tuesday. "Recruitment continues to be widespread because the war in southern Sudan has created a plethora of government-aligned militias or other armed groups," the report added. Read more >>>

Darfur sex attacks rise as security deteriorates

LONDON, Aug 23 (Reuters) -
Sex attacks on displaced women collecting firewood in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region have surged to 200 a month from just a handful as security deteriorates, an international aid agency said on Wednesday.

Darfuri women are forced to walk several miles into isolated bush from their camp confines to search for fuel, and a peace deal agreed in May between the Khartoum government and a Darfur rebel group has done little to bring security for them.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) documented more than 200 attacks on the women in the past five weeks outside the largest camp for displaced people in Darfur, where a three-year conflict has forced about 2.5 million people from their homes.

"This is a massive spike in figures," Kurt Tjossem, the IRC's deputy chief for East Africa, said in a statement. "We are used to two to four incidents of sexual assault per month in Kalma camp." Read more >>>

The crisis in Darfur

RI's Concerns

Three years of fighting in Darfur have destroyed hundreds of villages, displaced 2.2 million and led to more than 400,000 deaths. RI is advocating for a swift and forceful response to the Darfur crisis, including better coordination of and more provision of humanitarian aid and establishment of an effective peacekeeping force to protect civilians.

The UN warns that the situation in Darfur is emerging as the worst humanitarian crisis in Sudan since 1998. The United States government and the parliament of the European Union agree that the government of Sudan is committing genocide in Darfur. Despite the signing of a ceasefire agreement and numerous other international agreements, the government of Sudan and Janjaweed militia continue to attack civilians with impunity. Forced relocations of settlements for internally displaced people, rapes of women by government police officers, and continued attacks on villages continue to plague the region and there seems to be little that the international community can do. Read more >>>

Don't Forget Sudan

Special Report
By Daniel Allott

Jan Egeland, head of United Nations humanitarian operations, describes the region as "going from real bad to catastrophic" and "headed toward total chaos."

The top U.N. aid official says the level of violence faced by humanitarian workers is "unprecedented."

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan refers to the situation as "one of the worst nightmares in recent history," "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," and "little short of hell on earth."

No, they're not talking about the crisis in the Middle East, where the United Nations has just announced plans to dispatch a 15,000-strong international force to enforce a cease-fire in southern Lebanon. These are the latest reactions of U. N. officials to the unfolding genocide in Darfur. Read more >>>

Whither Darfur?

by Aaron Tesfaye

Sudan is a nation confronted by three intractable political challenges, where peace has been elusive and political solutions to state-society conflicts chimerical. In the south of the country, the people under the leadership of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) had fought the central government for some twenty years and in the process up to a million people had lost their lives. In the east, there is a simmering rebellion fueled by politics and disgruntled army elements that live scattered among the Beja in and around Kasala. In the west, the region of Darfur has become known as a land of an all-out scorched-earth war, rape, plunder, and refugees. Read more >>>

U.N.: Reject Sudan’s Darfur Plan

HRW

The United Nations Security Council should reject a Sudanese government plan for “strengthening security and restoring stability” in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today. The government proposes to send 10,500 new government troops to Darfur, in direct violation of the Darfur Peace Agreement signed by the Sudanese government on May 5.
“The Sudanese government’s plan is a recipe for inflicting even more abuses on a devastated civilian population,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Khartoum wants the U.N. to endorse a plan that would throw out the Darfur peace agreement. It wouldn’t help protect civilians from constant attack or make it safe enough for them to return home.” Read more >>>

Sudan: Peace deal and new speech in Darfur

Nairobi (HAN)

In its statement of Aug 16th, 2006 on the suspension of the DPA non signatories from Joint Commission and Ceasefire Commission, the first reason of AU mission is the allegation emanating from “media statements” and “media reports” of the group’s hostility against AMIS personnel and installations.

AU mission does not bother itself to investigate the accuracy of the allegations as long as the accusations are not directed to its allies: the government of Sudan, its janjaweed militias and the new ally Minni. Read more >>>

DARFUR: NEW URGENT CRISIS

UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com UN/ - 19 August 2006 - U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown has warned the international community today of the “extraordinary concern” over the dangerous situation in Darfur and that “something very ugly is brewing” in the strife-torn western Sudan.

“We are extraordinarily concerned,” Malloch Brown told reporters at the U.N. today and he said the humanitarian and security situation is worsening in “the absence of a clear political path to the deployment of a UN force.”

U.N. Security Council members are circulating a draft resolution on the size and scope of a possible UN peacekeeping operation to replace the current mission of the African Union (AU). Read more >>>

Darfur needs a UN peacekeeping force

Amnesty International

Sudan: Darfur needs a UN peacekeeping force that can provide security for civilians

The African Union and the Darfur Peace Agreement are failing the people of Darfur, Amnesty International said today, as the UN Security Council prepared to discuss the possible mandate of a UN peacekeeping force to protect civilians in Darfur. Only a renewed and determined engagement by the UN and the international community can offer hope for an end to the people's suffering.
"The international community must admit that no solution has been offered to the suffering in Darfur -- on the contrary things are getting worse," said Kate Gilmore, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International. "What the people of Darfur need now is an international peacekeeping force with the power to put a stop to the killings, to the raping, and to the displacement. Personal security is the basic need -- and fundamental right -- of all people in Darfur." Read more >>>

US, Britain want UN to authorize troops for Darfur

By Matthew Verrinder

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain and the United States on Thursday introduced a U.N. Security Council resolution to send some 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers to the Darfur region of Sudan, despite opposition from the Khartoum government.

The resolution can be adopted without any consent from Sudan, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Jackie Sanders said. But in practice troops cannot be deployed until Khartoum agrees.

"I hope that when we negotiate this text, there will be clarity from the government of Sudan that such an operation, favored by the African Union and favored by the Security Council should take place," Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told reporters. Read more >>>

Peace Deal Has Increased Violence

The situation in Sudan's western Darfur region has gone from bad to worse. Renewed violence has either stymied or stopped food and relief aid deliveries to three million refugees and displaced people in the region. The May 5 peace agreement (Darfur Peace Agreement, or DPA) has not brought peace. Read more >>>

Selfish motivations for peace

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, you describe the increase in violence recently since the May peace agreement. From what you could see, why isn't the agreement working?

KEN BACON: Well, I think it's not working for one fundamental reason, which is that the two signatories to the agreement, the government of Sudan and the Minni Minnawi faction see the agreement primarily as a way to continue augmenting their territory and augmenting their influence.

They see the agreement as a way to advance their causes. It doesn't look like they're interested in peace and reconciliation; it looks more like they're interested in attacks and retribution. Read more >>>

Red Cross warns of catastrophe in Darfur

(CWNews.com) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that the security of aid workers in Darfur is at risk, following the deaths of eight aid workers in the region during the month of July.

The humanitarian group said the deaths underscore the fragile security situation, which had rendered the distribution of relief aid in the Sudanese province even more difficult. ICRC said despite maintaining contacts with all parties to the conflict, its staff members have periodically been threatened and its convoys and staff robbed by groups over which the parties have no control. Read more >>>

Letter to the U.N. Security Council on Sudan Sanctions and Civilian Protection in Darfur

Your Excellencies:

Human Rights Watch supports the recommendations and plans for a robust U.N. force in Darfur as set forth in the July 28 report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Darfur. We urge you to act quickly to fully implement the planned U.N. peacekeeping mission at the earliest feasible date and to bolster the 7,000 African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) civilian protection troops in Darfur in the interim, as recommended by the Secretary-General. Read more >>>

Darfur Grows Deadlier

Michael Huang

The May Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) between the Sudanese government and several rebel groups has brought anything but peace, as the region is ravaged by escalating violence and crisis. More aid workers were killed in Darfur within two weeks than in the two years previous, marking July as the deadliest month of violence since the conflict began. The latest rise in violence is merely consistent with a year-long trend of growing insecurity, as the UN notes that the number of armed clashes during the first half of 2006 is double the same period of 2005. Read more >>>

Danger and death continue in Darfur with little world response

United Nations needs to send a large peacekeeping force as soon as possible


Despite a peace agreement reached in May, civilians continue to die in Darfur. Three years of violence have displaced thousands of innocents in western Sudan.

The only solution is a robust response from the international community, Africans and Westerners alike.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the problems in Darfur.

Blame the intransigence of the Sudanese government, the recalcitrance of some rebel factions, the inadequacies of the African Union peacekeeping force and the glacially slow responses of the United Nations. Read more >>>

Darfur deserves more outrage, action

There is a disturbing difference between the global responses to two conflicts, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof noted. Israel’s monthlong bombardment of Lebanon has killed hundreds and could lead to 20,000 international peacekeepers. But "three years ago," he wrote, "Sudan began a genocide against African tribes in its Darfur region. That war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and it is now spreading. There is talk of U.N. peacekeepers someday, but none are anywhere in sight. The moral of the story? Never, ever be born to a tribe that is victim to genocide in Africa."
As for the Arab world, Kristof wrote, "I sympathize with their horror at what is happening in Lebanon, but I wish they were just as outraged when Muslims slaughter Muslims in Darfur."
Posted by Rhonda Holman

“Darfur's downward spiral”

“Violence continues to escalate in Sudan: Can we avert a catastrophe?”
by Eric Reeves

Darfur continues its inexorable slide toward cataclysmic human destruction. Despite the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) signed in Abuja, Nigeria on May 5, violence continues to escalate. Indeed, much of the violence is a direct result of shortcomings in the Abuja agreement, particularly the failure to provide meaningful international guarantees and guarantors.

The most terrifying consequence of this violence is the threat posed to the world's largest humanitarian operation. Jan Egeland, head of UN aid operations, put the matter bluntly on August 10: "It's going from real bad to catastrophic in Darfur." Aid workers were attacked and killed in unprecedented numbers in July, and all signs are that this pattern will continue. Read more >>>

Secretary-General voices concern about worsening situation in Sudan

11 August 2006 – Warning of deteriorating security conditions in Darfur and the grave challenges facing relief efforts there, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged the Security Council to work urgently to address the situation in the war-torn region.

In a letter dated 10 August to the Council President, Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng of Ghana, the Secretary-General noted that there had been an upsurge in violence in Darfur in recent weeks. Read more >>>

U.N.: Darfur is Becoming 'Catastrophic'

GENEVA - The United Nations' top humanitarian official warned Thursday that the situation in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region was becoming dramatically more dangerous, as rapes and attacks by militias and rebel factions continue despite a 3-month-old peace deal.
The U.N. said a day earlier that the May 5 peace deal, signed between Sudan's government and Darfur's main rebel group, was "doomed to failure" unless the government provided more support.

"It's going from real bad to catastrophic in Darfur," Jan Egeland told reporters at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva. Read more >>>

Open letter Calls for Protection of Darfur Women

The NGO Minority Rights Group International is sending an open letter to human rights leaders calling for better protection for women in Darfur. Gender officer Katrina Naomi says, “Rape is being used as a tool of war and militias are being allowed to act with impunity.”

From London, she spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about the reasons for the open letter. “The situation in Darfur has been in a bad way for quite a while now. And we feel that in some ways the attention of the world is moving elsewhere. But the number of rapes that are happening on minority women in Darfur, unfortunately, that isn’t lessening, and we felt it was important to try and keep a spotlight on the way that militias are able to rape women with impunity, it seems, in Darfur.” Read more >>>

"SAVE DARFUR NOW: Voices to Stop Genocide" rally

"SAVE DARFUR NOW: Voices to Stop Genocide" rally will take to the streets of New York City on the afternoon of Sunday, September 17. For more info >>>

U.N.: Darfur Peace Deal 'Doomed'

AP) A peace deal signed three months ago between Sudan's government and the main rebel group in Darfur has failed to halt violence in the region, the United Nations said Wednesday, citing an increase in rape and continued attacks by militias and rebel factions.

The global body said the May 5 peace deal, signed in Nigeria, was "doomed to failure" without more support from the Sudanese government, "with the population of Darfur continuing to suffer grave violations of human rights as violence among competing armed groups in Darfur persists." Read more >>>

Violence threatens Darfur relief

More aid workers have been killed in Sudan's Darfur region in the last two weeks than in the past two years, the United Nations and aid agencies say.
The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says access to people in need in Darfur is at its lowest level since the conflict began.

Aid agencies say the situation has got worse since the May peace accord. Read more >>>

Attacks threaten world's largest aid operation in Darfur

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Aug 8 (Reuters) - July was the most dangerous month for humanitarian workers in Sudan's Darfur region and afforded the worst access to those in need since the conflict began 3-1/2 years ago, aid agencies said on Tuesday.

Violence in refugee camps sheltering 2.5 million people in Darfur has rocketed since an unpopular peace deal was signed in May and threatens to jeopardise the world's largest aid operation, the joint statement by four major aid agencies said. Read more >>>

Increased Insecurity Hampers MSF Medical Assistance In Darfur

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) demands that the provision of medical care be allowed and respected in the conflict areas of Darfur, Sudan. Many MSF activities are currently suspended in Darfur, leaving thousands of patients untreated everyday.

MSF has been attacked in the past weeks in several locations in all regions of Darfur. Among the latest incidents: on July 14, armed men robbed the MSF compound and stole a car in Serif Umra; on July 16, an MSF ambulance was shot at on the road between el Geneina and Morney and the driver beaten; on July 18, another MSF vehicle was stolen from a medical facility in Shangil Tobaya; on July 20, a team was whipped and robbed on the road between Golo and Niertiti. Read more >>>

Sudan: The International Criminal Court (ICC) in Darfur

In Darfur, the western region of Sudan, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million have been displaced in what has become known as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

The crisis began in Africa's largest country in early 2003, when two rebel forces took up arms against the government, to provide protection to civilians in land disputes in the region.

In response, the Sudanese government has allegedly funded the nomadic militias, known as Janjawid, who have destroyed villages, and killed, raped and abducted people. Read more >>>

Darfur: the Edge of the Abyss

By By NAT HENTOFF

Every morning, checking the news from Darfur, I see the utter helplessness and hopelessness of the people in that ravaged part of Sudan. While the world is otherwise occupied: "Darfur Violence Worsens After Peace Deal." "(Darfur) Is Most Dangerous Place in the World for Children." "Escalating Tribal Tensions (among rebels) Fuel New Darfur Attacks."

My own feeling of uselessness after writing so many columns about the mass murders and rapes by the Sudan government's enablers of genocide, the Janjaweed, brings me back to my childhood -- listening on the radio continually to CBS's William Shirer from Hitler's Berlin. Read more >>>

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Hanging By a Thread

by Eric Reeves

For the past seven years, Eric Reeves has worked full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst. He publishes regularly on the topic and has testified several times before Congress. He is a professor at Smith College and runs the endlessly informative sudanreeves.org.

Despite the blandly disingenuous words of UN officials such as Jan Pronk, and the shameful silence of African Union officials, the catastrophe in Darfur continues to deepen---relentlessly, dangerously, uncontrollably. Malnutrition and mortality are rising rapidly, and growing water shortages will result in the increased use of unsanitary ground water during the current rainy season. Water-borne diseases are already increasingly prevalent and will continue to spread through September. The current outbreak of cholera is poised to explode in any number of camps that have diminished humanitarian resources, fewer sanitary latrines and in many cases are still absorbing large numbers of newly displaced persons as violence continues apace in many locations. Read more >>>

Darfur refugee describes the horror

‘Genocide a way of life in Sudan’
By Richard Nangle

WORCESTER— A refugee from the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan told of the horrors of living in and escaping from his country last night before a group of about 30 people at Temple Emanuel who were urged by Temple leaders to be active in the effort to force the U.S. government to take the lead to stop the killing.

Abu Asal, who has lived in the United States for just more than a year, said he was disappointed with the lack of attention being given to the carnage in his native land. He said genocide has been a way of life in Sudan for decades as democratic governments have been overthrown by the military. Read more >>>

Darfur rebels kill, rape to enforce deal

(Reuters) - Darfur rebels who signed a peace deal with the government killed and raped civilians to try to force them to support the unpopular accord, human rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The African Union-brokered deal was signed in May by only one of three rebel factions -- the Minni Arcua Minnawi group. Tens of thousands of Darfuris have protested against the deal, saying it does not meet their demands.

"Some 72 people were killed, 103 injured and 39 women raped in targeted attacks against civilians in the Korma region," said Amnesty in a statement. More >>>>>>>>

Darfur rebels kill, rape to enforce deal

(Reuters) - Darfur rebels who signed a peace deal with the government killed and raped civilians to try to force them to support the unpopular accord, human rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The African Union-brokered deal was signed in May by only one of three rebel factions -- the Minni Arcua Minnawi group. Tens of thousands of Darfuris have protested against the deal, saying it does not meet their demands.

"Some 72 people were killed, 103 injured and 39 women raped in targeted attacks against civilians in the Korma region," said Amnesty in a statement. More >>>>>>>>

Annan outlines Darfur peace plans

UN chief Kofi Annan has urged the Security Council to reinforce Darfur's African Union (AU) peacekeepers, while pressuring Sudan to accept a UN force.
Mr Annan gave three options for the UN, with Sudan's approval, to bring peace.

One scheme would involve 18,600 African and Asian troops, making it the world's largest UN peace force. Read more >>>

The ongoing war in Darfur

The situation in Darfur, Sudan, is a grave one. Since 2003, it is approximated that 3.5 million people are hungry, 2.5 million are displaced due to violence, and approximately 400,000 people are deceased. However, not many people know the real problems spurring the genocide.

There are several aspects contributing to the situation in Darfur. One aspect is a war between government-aligned forces and rebels. The second aspect entails indiscriminate attacks of the government-sponsored "Janjaweed" militia on civilians. The third aspect of the genocide is a struggle within the Darfur communities themselves. Read more >>>

Darfur rebels kill, rape to enforce deal: Amnesty

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Darfur rebels who signed a peace deal with the government killed and raped civilians to try to force them to support the unpopular accord, human rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The African Union-brokered deal was signed in May by only one of three rebel factions -- the Minni Arcua Minnawi group. Tens of thousands of Darfuris have protested against the deal, saying it does not meet their demands.

"Some 72 people were killed, 103 injured and 39 women raped in targeted attacks against civilians in the Korma region," said Amnesty in a statement.

The attacks were at the beginning of July in Korma, about 70 km (45 miles) north west of el-Fasher, Darfur's main town. Around 8,000 people fled their homes, emptying Korma.

"The attackers were members of the Minni Minnawi faction of the armed political group the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), reportedly supported by the Sudan armed forces and the Janjaweed," London-based Amnesty said. Read more >>>

SUDAN: Escalating violence displaces 25,000 in North Darfur

NAIROBI, 1 August (IRIN) - Violent clashes between Sudanese government forces, allied militias and rebel groups have displaced 25,000 civilians in North Darfur State, United Nations officials said on Tuesday.

"Over the past three weeks, we estimate that more than 25,000 people have been displaced in North Darfur, 18,000 of whom have newly arrived in various IDP [internally displaced persons] camps," Turid Laegreid, head of the sub-office of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for North Darfur, told IRIN. Read more >>>

Sudan: Attacks On Rebels in North Darfur Must Stop, UN And African Envoys Say

Senior United Nations and African Union (AU) envoys to Sudan today jointly condemned a recent militia-backed attack by Government forces against a rebel group in the northern part of the country's strife-torn Darfur region and called for an immediate end to the hostilities.

The Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission in Sudan, Baba Gana Kingibe, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative, Jan Pronk, expressed "utmost concern" about the 29 July attack against the group, which is one that has not signed the Darfur Peace Agreement. Read more >>>