December 10th - Human Rights Day: Protect the women of Darfur

On December 10 – Human Rights Day – people around the world will be join together to denounce the use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war in Darfur and to show solidarity with the women and girls of Darfur.
Events for December 10th are being planned by groups all over the world. Get in touch with us to add your event.
Please do Sound the Alarm on Darfur by adding your name to the petition , and feel free to upload a picture of yourself with a blue beret.
Find an event near you! Go to www.globefordarfur.org

Darfur tragedy

As a Native American living in the United States, I find the ongoing slaughter, rape and murder of innocent citizens in the Darfur region of Africa astonishing as well as unacceptable.

The American response to this tragedy has been slow and underwhelming. Looking back upon the history of our country, I recall a time when the world looked to the United States in times of disaster and tragedy and we responded swiftly and effectively. Read more >>>

Making a Difference: Justice in Darfur

A forum by people from Sudan and Boston who are working for peace development and freedom will be held Sunday, Dec. 3 at 3:30 p.m. at the Second Congregational Church, 485 Washington St.

"Making a Difference: Justice in Darfur" will include panelists Karen Hirschfeld, Sudan Coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights who will start the program off with an overview of the history of the region and bring us up to date on the situation there. Joining her on the panel will be Omer Ismail, a refugee from Darfur, Panther Alier, one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan," and Sifa Nsengimana, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Read more >>>

New violence displaces more families and hampers relief efforts in Chad

© UNICEF video
By Jane O’Brien
NEW YORK
Escalating unrest in Chad is hampering efforts to help a quarter of a million Sudanese refugees and Chadian nationals displaced by the fighting across the region. Ethnic feuds, attacks by the Janjaweed militia and rebel activity are all contributing to worsening security in a country already suffering the fallout from the conflict in neighbouring Darfur.

An estimated 15,000 people in Chad have been forced .. Read more >>>

Waiting to stop genocide in Darfur

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

(Why is the international community - including the United Nations, European Union and the United States - waiting to stop the slaughter in Darfur? With the death toll up to 400,000, action to end this genocide is overdue. Tough sanctions should be imposed on Sudanese leaders responsible for the atrocities. The government's offshore businesses and oil industry should be targeted, too. Make the cost of mass murder outweigh the gain.

Diplomacy and patience have led to worsening violence. Short of military intervention, international pressure is the best way to compel Sudan to accept the U.N. peacekeeping force needed to protect Darfurians and curtail the spread of the conflict to other African nations. Read more >>>

Atrocities daily in Darfur -UN rights chief

By Robert Evans

GENEVA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Atrocities are occurring daily in Sudan's Darfur region and rape and pillage directed against civilians are at "a horrific level," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said on Wednesday.

She told the world body's Human Rights Council that the Sudanese government and militias linked to and supported by it were "responsible for the most serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law" in Darfur. Read more >>>

Darfur: reasons for fear and hopeWhy the interest?

By ANNE APPLEBAUM
Special to The Washington Post

There was a photograph: a weeping Sudanese woman, standing before a freshly dug grave. There were statistics: 400,000 people dead, 2.5 million driven from their homes, "untold thousands" raped. There was an appeal: "Innocent civilians are being slaughtered in Darfur. You can end it," and a Web address, www.dayfordarfur.org.

"How will history judge us?" Read more >>>

Genocide in Darfur

Darfur, a section on the western side of Sudan, is also known as a place of mass killings and rape. Genocide is happening in Darfur as you read this, but while you read this, there is something else that isn't happening.

Sufficient help and support isn't being sent to Darfur, and I feel it is overdue. Over 400,000 men, women and even children have been killed in Darfur, and it's rapidly increasing.

The U.N. won't seem to do anything about it; they feel that if we just leave it alone, it will blow over in time. Actions need to be taken to help these people. They have been forced from their homes, and now face starvation, violence and even rape. Read more >>>

More than 55,000 older people living in Darfur camps are the 'invisible vulnerable', says a new report by HelpAge International

New research by HelpAge International shows that thousands of internally displaced older people live in relief camps in Darfur without recognition or support of their needs. They face isolation and limited access to food, healthcare, and income-generating activities.

The research shows that an estimated 55,000 older people, the 'invisible vulnerable', are sidelined by most programmes and invisible to the majority of humanitarian organisations. Read more >>>

Darfur: 'Genocide general' welcomed into UK

By: BRIAN BRADY

A SENIOR member of the Sudanese government accused of supporting ethnic cleansing in Darfur has been allowed into Britain for medical treatment twice in the last six months, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

While Tony Blair and fellow international leaders have condemned the Khartoum government for complicity in looming genocide in Darfur, its intelligence chief General Salah Abdallah has been granted two visas to enter the UK for "urgent" treatment at an exclusive private hospital in London.

Between 1990 and 1996 Abdallah, also known as Al Ghosh, was Osama Bin Laden's main escort when he lived in Sudan. Read more >>>

Darfur mass murderer: Salah Gosh

By Nigel Nelson

TONY Blair has sparked fury by TWICE allowing a suspected mass murderer into Britain.
The PM approved two entry visas in the past nine months for the hated head of Sudan's secret police.

Salah Abdallah - dubbed General Genocide - is believed to have orchestrated the massacre of 300,000 people in the Darfur region and made another two million homeless.
He allegedly led the feared janjaweed militias and may be put on a UN war crimes "wanted" list.

Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said: "He is the intelligence chief of a uniquely evil regime. In my view he should not have been here - but now we need to know why he was."
Salah came here in March and August to see doctors and reveal information on Al-Qaida. Read more >>>

How will history judge us?

By ANNE APPLEBAUM

There was a photograph: a weeping Sudanese woman, standing before a freshly dug grave. There were statistics: 400,000 people dead, 2.5 million driven from their homes, "untold thousands" raped. There was an appeal: "Innocent civilians are being slaughtered in Darfur. You can end it," and a Web address, www.dayfordarfur.org.

But what really made me look twice was the slogan across the top: "When all the bodies have been buried in Darfur, how will history judge us? Read more >>>

Darfur war breeds ’dirty babies’

By Ishbel Matheson

The sickly, three-month-old child, named Hawa, is the result of terrible atrocity.

When Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, came to Fatma’s home in January, they threatened to kill her father.

Fatma intervened but the gunmen turned on her.
"They said to me: ’You are a prostitute’," she says.
"They pinned me down, one on my hands and one on my legs. The others took turns."

Fatma was held for four hours and raped repeatedly.
They left her alive, but injured so badly, that she could not walk.

When her family eventually found her, they had to carry her home.

Marked for life Two months later, Fatma realised that she was pregnant. She is just 15 years old.

"At first my father wanted to throw me out. But others pleaded with him."

Her family moved to a refugee camp in the town of Kass, along with other survivors from her village.
But in this traditional society, Fatma and her baby are marked for life. The young mum tells how neighbours whisper about her.

"They say I’m a bad girl - that I had this Janjaweed baby. They say that I should be sent away," she says.

As she speaks, baby Hawa frets and cries. She is malnourished and light as a feather.
Her mother presses her to her breast, but she has no milk.
We ask an older woman who is present, to try to help us soothe the baby.
She refuses, cursing the child as if she were a bad omen.

"She is calling the baby ’a dirty girl’," says Unicef’s Eman el-Tigani.
"Fatma has no future here. Islam does not allow for a baby to be killed. Otherwise this baby would be dead."

Rape ’commonplace’

Fatma and her baby are victims of a brutal scorched-earth campaign in this remote region in western Sudan. Read more >>>

Sudanese Military Accused Of "indiscriminate" Attack On Civilians

The Sudanese army launched an attack on civilians in western Darfur earlier this month, killing 11 people and burning homes and crops, according to the results of an investigation by UN human rights observers published Friday.

The raid on Sirba on November 11 was carried out by hundreds of government soldiers acting together with Janjaweed (nomadic Arab) militia, according to eye witnesses. Read more >>>

Genocide in Darfur must be stopped

By MARILYN TOTH

As many readers are aware, for the past three years the government of Sudan has waged war on the local tribes of Darfur, killing more than 300,000, raping thousands and making 2 million of its people refugees, simply because of the color of their skin.
Looking back on the 1930s, one can see that measures to stop Hitler's genocide against Europe's Jews were often impeded because people simply could not grasp that mass murder was really going on. Such, however, is not the case with Darfur, with former Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush both declaring it genocide.

While there has also been a heartening, almost unprecedented citizen outcry in response to the genocide in Darfur, it is important that we move beyond words to immediate action. Read more >>>

Sudan's Darfur 'close to abyss'

Sudan's Darfur 'close to abyss'

The conflict has killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of people
UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland has accused Sudan of fuelling the worsening conflict in the Darfur region.
He said the number of people in "desperate need" of aid in Darfur had risen to 4 million, compared to 1 million two years ago.

Mr Egeland said Sudan's government was obstructing international aid efforts and "arming to the teeth" Arab militias accused of attacks on Darfur villagers.

Only a "change in will" in Sudan and abroad could improve matters, he said. Read more >>>

International court prosecutor close to launching Darfur prosecutions

THE HAGUE, Netherlands:
The International Criminal Court is close to launching prosecutions against suspects believed responsible for atrocities including murder, rape and torture in Darfur, the court's chief prosecutor announced Thursday.

"Based on a careful and thorough source evaluation of all the evidence collected, we were able to identify the gravest incidents and some of those who could be considered to be the most criminally responsible," prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told a meeting of states that have ratified the Hague-based court.

Moreno-Ocampo did not name any suspects being targeted by prosecutors or identify atrocities they are alleged to have taken part in.

But he said investigators have proof of crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, rape, torture, deliberate attacks on civilians, persecution and forcible expulsions. Read more >>>

Mia Farrow assails 'genocidal violence'

By: GEORGE GEDDA

WASHINGTON - Actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Mia Farrow called Wednesday for peacekeepers to be sent immediately to halt "genocidal violence" that she said was spreading from Sudan's Darfur province into neighboring eastern Chad.

"We're seeing atrocities of an indescribable kind," said Farrow, just back from a visit to Chad after an earlier trip to Darfur.

In a telephone interview from her home in Connecticut, Farrow said 60 villages were burned to the ground, forcing thousands to flee. She said she found some people "clustered under trees, dazed and terrified." Read more >>>

Blair warns Sudan of 'tougher measures'

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned on Wednesday that Sudan will face "tougher measures" if it fails to act on an agreement calling for a United Nations-African peacekeeping force for war-torn Darfur.

"The only solution is to make sure that the agreement ... is implemented," Blair told the House of Commons during his weekly question-and-answer session.

"If the government [of Sudan] does not seize this opportunity then we will have to look at tougher measures," Blair said. Read more >>>

Darfur: Fleeing civilians short of blankets and food

KHARTOUM, 20 November (IRIN) -

Several thousand civilians who have fled armed militia attacks in Birmaza, North Darfur State, and sought shelter in nearby hills, have no blankets or food, and only limited access to water after bombings last week targeted water points, the United Nations said.

The attacks, allegedly carried out by Janjawid militias and Sudanese armed forces on 15 and 16 November, have been described by the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) as "a flagrant violation of the security provisions" of the Darfur peace agreement. The attackers stole livestock and destroyed houses, prompted 3,000 civilians to flee.

The UN, in an update on the situation issued on Sunday, said another 5,000 civilians had fled attacks on 17 and 18 November in Jebel Mara area of West Darfur to shelter in mountains and internally displaced people (IDP) camps. Read more >>>

Darfur children dragged from mothers and shot

By: Katharine Houreld, Tine, Darfur

WHEN the fighters came, the mothers of Jebel Maun could not protect their children. Screaming toddlers were ripped from their grasp and shot; older children who tried to save their brothers and sisters were hunted down.
“Four children escaped in a group and ran under a tree for protection. An attacker came and shot at them, killing one of the children,” said a witness in an account to United Nations staff.


Another group, aged five, seven and nine, tried to run away. The five-year-old fell down and was shot dead. Another boy stopped and told the attacker: “You killed this child. Please let me go.” It was no use. He too was killed, one of more than 20 children who died that day. Read more >>>



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Heavy toll reported as Sudan army bombards Darfur

Addis Ababa,
The African Union on Saturday reported a "heavy" civilian toll after Sudanese forces and allied militia this week conducted raids in the war-ravaged western region of Darfur.

The AU Mission in Sudan (Amis) reported a "heavy toll on the civilian population" after the army, backed by Janjaweed militia, carried out aerial bombardments in Birmaza in northern Darfur on Wednesday and Thursday.

"These attacks are a flagrant violation of the security provisions of the DPA [Darfur Peace Agreement]," said a statement from the AU, whose mission is to monitor Darfur's often-violated peace deal. Read more >>>

UN humanitarian chief says Sudan's government is terrorizing civilians

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The Sudanese army and government-backed militias are committing acts of "inexplicable terror" against civilians, including children, in Darfur, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official said Saturday.

Spiraling violence in the conflict-wracked region of western Sudan is reaching its worst level since fighting erupted more than three years ago, Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said.

"The government and its militias are conducting inexplicable terror against civilians," he said in an Associated Press interview just after returning from his final trip to the area before his term as U.N. humanitarian chief ends in December. Read more >>>

Sudanese army launches major offensive in Darfur

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Sudan's government has launched a major offensive in North Darfur despite an agreement to restart a peace process, Darfur rebels said on Sunday.

A rebel commander said clashes continued on Saturday and Sunday, following joint attacks by government and militia forces on rebel bases in the Bir Mazza area on Nov. 15-16.

The African Union (AU) monitoring mission, which had condemned last week's attacks, confirmed that fighting was continuing in the area. But the Sudanese army denied it was conducting an offensive.

"We have split into two or three groups and all have fighting," said Jar el-Neby, a rebel commander from the National Redemption Front (NRF), which rejects a May peace accord signed by only one of many rebel factions.

"The government did not use planes yesterday but today the Antonovs are circling," he told Reuters from Darfur. Read more >>>

Darfur kids 'targets of attacks'

El-Geneina - A three-year-old Darfuri girl has been shot twice in the neck, one of the victims of armed militia who were targeting women and children in Sudan. Sobbing, Khadija Abakr cradles her daughter Aasha close to her breast.

Abakr recounted how a man she describes as an "Arab" pointed a rifle at her child and screamed "I'm going to shoot her, I'm going to shoot her".

She said: "I begged him not to do it. He was demanding money." He then shot Aasha twice. Read more >>>

Darfur survivors tell of Janjaweed slaughter

By Stephanie Hancock

SENEIT, Chad-Sudan border, Nov 17 (Reuters) - "They attacked without warning at dawn," Ismail Abdallah Cherif said in a matter-of-fact way.

"There were many of them. They came on horses and camels. Without asking any questions they just opened fire. Some people were in their beds, others were making tea. The Janjaweed made no distinction. Children, women, grandmothers -- everyone was targeted. Only those who hid were saved," he said.

Like many hundreds of others, Cherif has fled over the border to Chad since the attack by the Janjaweed militia on his village of Khabesh in the Jebel Moon area of West Darfur.

A United Nations human rights report says 22 people were killed in Khabesh, one of many villages attacked simultaneously on Oct. 29 by the Janjaweed, a largely Arab militia allied to Sudan's government troops in Darfur's war.

The government says the Janjaweed are bandits and denies any links to them.

"They raped our daughters and stole our cattle. I lost ... my brother, two children and a nephew and niece," said Alima, 30, who did not wish her family name to be published. Read more >>>

Misery of Darfur's displaced

By Haru Mutasa

Khatir and Hawa Hassam fled their village in Darfur four months ago, but while they have escaped the fighting near their home they and their family now face a new set of challenges.

The Hassams are among the 20,000 displaced people who have arrived at the el-Salam refugee camp in North Darfur since July.

The camp on the outskirts of el-Fasher, the nearest large Darfuri city to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, is almost full and already there are insufficient resources to look after so many people.

It is one of many such facilities that are unable to cope with the flood of refugees from a conflict that has so far left an estimated 200,000 people dead from fighting, disease and malnutrition in the Western region of Sudan. Read more >>>

More Darfur violence kills 30

Khartoum - At least 30 civilians have been killed and 40 injured after an attack by unknown armed militias on Sirba village in Sudan's embattled Darfur region, says an African Union official.

The attack on Saturday was the latest in a recent series of widely condemned raids by armed militias who were believed to be members of Darfur's notorious government-backed janjaweed.

The AU official said: "The assailants were said to be on camels and horses, and the village was razed." The AU said it was conducting an investigation into the attack.

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced that the UN would propose a "hybrid" peacekeeping force for Darfur to Sudanese officials at talks on the conflict to be held in Ethiopia later this week. Read more >>>

Ethnic cleansing spreads to eastern Chad

By Ann Curry

Janjaweed torching villages, killing ethnic Africans along border with Darfur

The fires of ethnic cleansing in Darfur are now raging in eastern Chad. More than 20 villages have been systematically set on fire here in the last 10 days. Monday, Chad's president declared a state of emergency. And now some are asking whether this area has become a second Darfur.

On the morning of Nov. 8, the farming village of Tamajour became the latest target.

When we found it two days later, Tamajour, home to 600 black Africans, was still smoldering. Scattered in the remains — charred corn, schoolbooks and a Koran. A thatched roof came down on some of the people who didn't leave. Read more >>>

Civilian and Humanitarian Security in Darfur: Final Concessions to Khartoum

Various international actors signal that the fate of civilians and humanitarian operations in Darfur and eastern Chad will ultimately be left in the hands of the National Islamic Front génocidaires

By: Eric Reeves

The signals have been everywhere in evidence these past ten days: there is simply no stomach within the international community to provide military resources for meaningful protection of the nearly 4.5 million conflict-affected persons that UN agencies now estimate are at risk in Darfur and eastern Chad (figures from the latest UN “Darfur Humanitarian Profile” [No. 25] and reports from UN organizations working in eastern Chad). The humanitarian operations upon which this almost incomprehensibly large population now depends are also at yet greater risk, with ever more urgent distress calls coming from organizations and individuals on the ground in Darfur. More and more of these aid organizations are approaching the breaking point, with contingency plans in place for rapid withdrawal.

One of the most important humanitarian organizations working in Darfur, Norwegian Refugee Council, was this past week forced by Khartoum’s relentless obstruction and harassment to withdraw, leaving some 300,000 civilians without the critical humanitarian assistance provided by this distinguished and venerable organization (it was founded in 1946 to assist refugees following World War II):

“[Norwegian Refugee Council] said it was pulling out 12 international staff and 170 local staff running one camp for 128,000 people in southern Darfur camp and another for 100,000 people. ‘We coordinated all aid, the fair distribution of food, medical care. Now there are 300,000 people on their own. That’s what concerns us most,’ said group spokeswoman Astrid Sehl by telephone. She said they also had to shut down an educational program from about 19,000 children, and stop distributing food to about 52,000 people outside the camps.” Read more >>>

Darfur militias in deadly attacks

More than two million people have been displaced during the conflict
About 30 people have been killed in Sudan's Darfur region, when pro-government militias raided a village, peacekeepers say.
Armed men on horses and camels rode into the village of Sirba, near the Chad border, killing those they found, say UN and African Union officials.

Meanwhile, the UN has offered at least $77m to help AU peacekeepers in Darfur.

Sudan has resisted plans for the UN to take over peacekeeping and this appears to be part of a compromise deal. Read more >>>

Genocide in Darfur

By Ziad Haider

Over 200,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced. Women are raped, cotton is stuffed in their mouth, and then they are set on fire. Rape and murder occurs in broad daylight in Darfur. And all this has been going on not for days, weeks, or months but years. Read more >>>

Nuer Community calls for military support to Darfur’s NRF

Union of Nuer Community in North America (UNCONA)
Press Release

Following three days deliberation, the Supreme Council of Nuer community in North America has unanimously decided to give military assistance to Darfur’s National Redemption Front. The ongoing genocide in Darfur perpetrated by National Congress Party’s jihadists can only be stopped militarily.

It has to be recalled that the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was stopped by the Tutsi freedom fighters after the failure of international community. Since the Bush’s administration has failed to use American military might to stop genocide in Darfur, the Supreme Council of Nuer community has come to conclusion that only the unity of the marginalized Africans in Sudan will stop ethnic cleansing in Darfur. The National Redemption Front, the military front of Darfur factions that didn’t sign the Darfur Peace Agreement, should be militarily supported to stop the genocide.
Read full press release >>>

Genocide in Darfur demands quick action

Betty Paules

Last year our church started a program called Saturday Night at the Movies. We chose movies that would inspire us to look at the world and its problems with new ideas and new visions.One of the movies we watched was "Darfur -- A 21st Century Genocide." Do Americans have any idea that the United Nations has declared this genocide to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today? 400,000 men, women, and children have been killed in Darfur. Millions of people have been forced from their homes and face starvation, rape and the constant threat of violence. Read more >>>

U.N. human rights chief warns of more Darfur attacks

GENEVA:
Militia movements in Darfur raise the specter that more atrocities against civilians, similar to an attack last month that killed 50 people, could be committed, the United Nations' top human rights official said Friday.

Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged Sudan's government to control militia in western Darfur that the global body has blamed for the Oct. 29 attacks which killed mostly young boys and elderly men and caused thousands to flee their homes.

"If the government of Sudan does not take control of the militias, disarm them and put an end to the proliferation of arms, the militias will continue to launch attacks on civilians," Arbour said in a statement. Read more >>>

Norwegian Refugee Council exits Darfur

OSLO, Norway --
A Norwegian refugee group said Friday it is closing down its humanitarian operations for nearly 300,000 people in Darfur because it is impossible to work in the troubled Sudanese region.

The Norwegian Refugee Council cited "frequent disruption" of its work, saying it had been suspended five times for a total of 210 days since it started operations in mid-2004.

"We cannot work when the authorities suspend us continuously and do not respond to our repeated requests for dialogue aimed at addressing and resolving underlying reasons for this action," said NRC Secretary-General Tomas C. Archer. Read more >>>

Nigeria's Soyinka urges world to shun Sudan

Nigerian Nobel Literature laureate Wole Soyinka has called on the world to shut its doors on the government of Sudan for "genocide" in Darfur.

"Two million people are squatting in their own country, facing genocide by their own government," he said during a visit to Nairobi, referring to the conflict in western Sudan which has killed an estimated 200 000 people and displaced 2,5-million.

While Washington and some rights groups have called the Darfur crisis "genocide", African leaders and intellectuals have generally held back from using such a charged term.

"I look down on all those who have not removed the Sudanese consulate from their country and who have not removed their consulates from Sudan," Soyinka, Read more >>>

Fight genocide: Take part in Darfur week

By Liz Leiwant

Since 2003, the Sudanese government and its militia, the janjaweed, have murdered 100,000 to 400,000 people from the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masaalit ethnic groups and displaced an additional two million. Darfur may seem like another in a long list of human rights violations and armed conflicts currently occurring in the world. Why care about Darfur above other issues? Because after the Holocaust, the world promised that never again would it allow genocide to occur, and that is exactly what is happening in Darfur. Read more >>>

Darfur: "There is a crisis of human suffering"

Dr. Rowan Gillies, International Council President of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), recently returned from a visit to Khartoum and Sudan's Darfur region. In the past year, MSF has experienced more than 40 violent security incidents, forcing the organization to close or reduce the staff of the majority of its assistance programs in the Jebel Marra region.

In western Darfur, MSF can no longer refer surgical patients and has had to postpone relief efforts for some 160,000 people living with little access to assistance or medical care in the town of Seleia. While in southern Darfur, MSF teams have had to evacuate the towns of Muhajariya and Shariya on numerous occasions. Dr. Gillies met with Sudanese government officials to express MSF's concerns over the worsening security situation in Darfur as well as to assess the humanitarian needs in the region. Here he discusses the current situation. Read more >>>

Militia attack civilians, aid workers everyday in strife-torn Darfur, warns UN

Militia are continuing to attack civilians, burn houses and destroy crops every day in Sudan’s conflict-ridden Darfur region, while targeting non-governmental workers trying to assist an estimated 2 million people displaced by the violence, a UN spokesman warned today.

“The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) continue to receive daily reports of militia attacks on civilians, as well as attacks against humanitarian vehicles on key roads and even inside camps housing displaced persons,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York. Read more >>>

Darfur villagers mourn children killed by militia

By Opheera McDoom

GHEBESH, Sudan, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Arab militia on horses and camels wearing pristine uniforms and carrying brand new guns rode into Mariam Abakr Yehya's Darfur village early in the morning of Oct. 29, witnesses said.

Her three-year-old son Adam was torn from her embrace and shot dead by the intruders, who killed more than 50 people and looted all they could find in the village.

Overcome with grief as she recalled the incident, Mariam threw herself on the sandy soil, sobbing and beating the ground, her red and yellow robe covered in dust.

She cuddled her tiny baby as a surviving son hid in the gloom of their straw hut.

"Why? why? My heart is broken," she cried as her family tried to calm her down. "Next time they said they would kill this one," she said, referring to her baby boy. Read more >>>

Help end horrific tragedy in Darfur

Darfur needs our help!

Over 400,000 men, women and children are dead or dying due to a horrible civil war going on in Darfur in Africa. It is one of the worst disasters in history.

We stopped the Holocaust and we need to stop this horrible genocide. Now, it may only be a child, but the children are our future. If this country had oil, we would protect it; so, why do we ignore this terrible event? Read more >>>

Sudan failed to disarm Arab militas -- U.N. report

By Opheera McDoom

KULBUS, Sudan, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Sudan has failed to disarm proxy militias in Darfur as promised under a May peace deal, and government forces did not act to protect civilians in an attack last week that killed at least 50, a new U.N. report says.

The attack occurred on Oct. 29 near Jabel Moun, in an area where both rebel and government forces are present.

The report, seen by Reuters on Sunday, said 26 children were among 50 people killed in militia attacks on at least four villages. It said most of the 7,000 civilians living in the srea had fled their homes.

"At the very least, the attacks demonstrated the government of Sudan's continued failure to disarm militia in Darfur and, at worst, its use of militia forces that target civilians," it said.

The report was prepared by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on the basis of witness accounts, and is due to be released shortly.

Arab militias, known locally as Janjaweed, are blamed for a widespread campaign of rape, murder and pillage in Darfur that Washington calls genocide.

Khartoum denies genocide and any link to the Janjaweed, but it does admit having armed some militias during the 3-1/2-year conflict to fight the mostly non-Arab rebels. It denies giving any current support to militias. Read more >>>

Darfur refugees flee to find stability in an unstable world

By Jeffrey Gettleman

NYALA, Sudan — There is a camp called Otash that grows bigger every day, even as some displaced people elsewhere in Darfur get to go home because their villages are now calm. Here, people fleeing the war arrive by the truckload, 200 per truck, standing up to maximize space, packed in like corn.

They come from all parts of Darfur, for word is out that there is food and water and safety here. One of the first camps, it now has about 60,000 people.

A drive through the camp, which is on the outskirts of the city of Nyala, is like a journey through the entire Darfur tragedy, in which we see the stages of the conflict laid out spatially, one after another. Read more >>>

Children's drawings from Darfur show suffering

By Myron Kukla

HOLLAND -- The images are distinct and lasting in Evelyn Sallah's mind.

"The drawings tell a story of death and destruction in the villages and refugee camps in the Darfur region of the Sudan, where a war of genocide has been going on against the people there for three years," said Sallah, a program associate for public education with Africa Action Organization, a Washington, D.C.-based humanitarian group.

The organization is dedicated to mobilizing international assistance for peace and economic development in Africa.

"Picturing Genocide" features a handful of crayon pictures drawn by children. In another time, another place, the drawings would be of a family, pets and daily life.

But these images are from the war-ravaged region of Darfur in Sudan, where more than 400,000 people have died over the past three years. Read more >>>

Darfur - Dangling And Dying

Alexactus T. Kaure


THE African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Sudan will end less than two months from now. This will leave an already dark and dangerous security hole in the region.

So, while you are preparing to celebrate the festive season in a few weeks with your family; others will be on the run and starving because the Sudanese government is probably preparing for a final solution to the Darfur conflict.

Of course not many people will mourn the departure of the AU force because it has been ineffective and ineffectual right from the word go. Read more >>>

Darfur militias 'kill children'

The Janjaweed are accused of ethnic cleansing

Militias backing Sudan's government have killed at least 63 people in attacks in Darfur in the past week, African peacekeepers say.
At least 27 of the victims are thought to be children under the age of 12.

The attacks were carried on camps for the displaced in the rebel stronghold of Jebel Moon, in West Darfur.

The government says it is disarming the Janjaweed militia but a BBC correspondent in Sudan says all the evidence points to the exact opposite. Read more >>>

Press politicians on crisis in Darfur

By Brianna Smith

Some 400,000 men, women, and children have been killed in Darfur. Millions of people have been forced from their homes and face starvation, rape, and the constant threat of violence. It is a serious situation that needs attention from serious people.

Right now, candidates for public office are traveling the campaign trail describing their visions for the future. As Election Day approaches, stopping the genocide in Darfur must be on the agenda. Read more >>>

Sudanese army introduces Chemical weapons to Darfur

The National Redemption Front (NRF) confirms that GoS has airlifted new weapons into Darfur. The airlift that took place a week ago during the festival of the holy month of Ramadan included banned chemical weapons and lethal bombs, described as entirely new to Darfur battlefields. Read more >>>

It would be outrageous for the U.N. not to intervene in Darfur

Editorial:
The government of Sudan is widely believed to be behind the genocide in the country's Darfur region that has claimed more than 200,000 lives and driven millions from their homes. Yet even with a new surge in violence, the United Nations is still waiting for permission from that same government to deploy a peacekeeping force to stop the killing. No wonder some critics of the United Nations consider it worthless.

It's way past time for the U.N. Security Council to dispatch the peacekeepers, whether or not Sudan's leaders agree.

U.N. intervention in a country against its wishes should be reserved for exceptional cases. But genocide more than meets that standard. Read more >>>