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'Inexplicable terror' in Darfur

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 19, 2006

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.

The accusations by Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, came as Sudanese officials indicated they might backtrack from a deal for a mixed U.N. and African peacekeeping force.

Egeland said spiraling violence in the conflict-wracked region of western Sudan is reaching its worst level since fighting erupted more than three years ago.

"The government and its militias are conducting inexplicable terror against civilians," he told the Associated Press in an interview after returning from his final trip to the area before his term ends in December.

"The government is arming Arab militias more than ever before ... the angst is that we may be reverting to the same level of violence" as in 2003 when the war in Darfur erupted, he said.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5-million displaced since rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the Arab-led central government in the vast arid area of western Sudan that is roughly the size of Texas. Khartoum is accused of using the janjaweed militias of Arab nomads to retaliate, but the government denies backing or arming the janjaweed.

While in Darfur, Egeland visited a government hospital in Geneina where survivors were being treated after a recent attack by government forces and janjaweed that killed 30 people.

"I saw a 2-year-old girl who was shot in the neck at point blank by a janjaweed," Egeland said. "This is an act of terror."

The baby's mother and several witnesses confirmed the attack was jointly conducted by the army and militias, he said.

"Those who continue to attack defenseless civilians will be judged," Egeland told reporters at a separate news conference. "There will be a time of reckoning."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday announced a multilateral agreement - reached in a gathering of African, Arab, European and U.N. leaders in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa - that could provide for a mixed U.N. and African Union peacekeeping mission for Darfur.

But Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol played down the scope of the agreement. Khartoum has not committed to a "mixed force," he said. "What was agreed upon is a mixed operation," he said.

"The role of the United Nations will be to provide support units and technical assistance to the African mission," Akol told reporters. "There is no way the main fighting force would be a mixed one."

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has firmly opposed any deployment of U.N. troops in Darfur to replace the 7,000 ill-equipped and poorly funded AU peacekeepers who have been unable to stop the bloodshed.

But other Sudanese officials have said a combined force would not pose a problem providing that its leadership and the bulk of its troops were African.

[Last modified November 19, 2006, 02:13:05]