More Killings in Darfur -- Ascending Light

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Date Posted: 23:04:41 05/28/07 Mon
Author: Weird_Enigma
Author Host/IP: 172.149.37.220
Subject: More Killings in Darfur
In reply to: Weird_Enigma 's message, "Boycott Beijing�s 2008 Olympics for China blocking peacekeepers to Darfur." on 23:03:55 05/24/07 Thu

AMID KILLING FIELDS OF WESTERN SUDAN
In Darfur, war's new phase spurs new fears
Villagers worry leaders will try to get rid of all witnesses to atrocities
ALFRED DE MONTESQUIOU
Associated Press

MUKJAR, Sudan --
Uncovered by a restless wind, skulls and bones poke above the thin dirt in this corner of Darfur.

A short, bearded man named Ibrahim, 42, scratches through the sand. He is quiet and serious, close to tears. There are other, bigger grave sites elsewhere, he says, but the bones he is looking at are those of 25 people who'd lived in his village.

Some of them were dragged from the prison where he was held, and then they were axed to death, he says.

Ibrahim is showing the burial ground to a reporter and a photographer, the first Western journalists to visit this remote town in more than a year. The western Sudan region is about to enter a new phase in its four-year-old conflict -- one that villagers fear may encourage more killing.

Sudan's government recently agreed to let in 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, a fraction of the 22,000 mandated by the Security Council last August. The deployment still could take months, and villagers here fear that before the U.N. soldiers move in, the government will want to get rid of all witnesses to the slaughter.

"We need them to come as fast as possible, because we're all in danger," Ibrahim says.

Aid workers and U.N. personnel say the burial site is one of three dozen mass graves around Mukjar, a town at the center of the Darfur calamity, holding evidence at the heart of the international community's case against Sudanese leaders for war atrocities.

Ibrahim and others interviewed insisted their full names be withheld for fear of reprisals. It is difficult to independently verify their accounts, but they cited dates and victims' names and drew maps of grave sites.

Some of what the witnesses say matches up with what a prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has documented: at least 51 cases of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Mukjar area -- mass executions, torture and rapes of civilians.

The prosecutor says most of the killings were done by the Sudanese army and the janjaweed, Arab militiamen backed by the Sudanese government. Their war on Darfur rebels, which turned against all black African villagers, has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 200,000 dead and 2.5 million made homeless.

Most of the mass killings in this area happened in late 2003 and early 2004, when long-simmering tensions in Darfur flared into its latest bloodbath.

Mukjar offers a sobering look at the results of a government victory: Impoverished and frightened ethnic Africans huddle in refugee camps, where they survive on humanitarian aid, while Arab nomads control the hinterland, threatening any farmer who tries to return.

Aid workers say the town is like "a security bubble," where refugees can live in relative safety as long as they don't venture more than a mile or so into the countryside.

Janjaweed fighters still stroll through the marketplace, automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

"We're always frightened," Ibrahim says. "We live in Mukjar like in a prison without walls. ... We're not safe, but we can't leave."

Gunmen Kill U.N. Peacekeeper From Egypt

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- A U.N. peacekeeper who was among a small group of reinforcements sent to Darfur was shot to death at his residence -- the world body's first casualty since its long-negotiated arrival in the troubled region, officials said Saturday.

Gunmen looted the home of the U.N. peacekeeper -- an Egyptian lieutenant colonel -- in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, and fatally shot him late Friday, the African Union and the U.N. said.

The gunmen who killed him were thought to be burglars, but an official close to the investigation said authorities would not exclude other motives.
associated press

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