AU criticises belligerents for attacks in Darfur

The African Union (AU) on Friday strongly criticised Sudan's government and rebel groups for launching attacks in December and late November respectively in the strife-torn western region of Darfur, ahead of a new round of peace talks between the two sides. Government troops carried out an attack at the localities of Bilel and Isham on 8 December to "clear roads of lawless elements" around El Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur, the AU said in a statement. The attack, however, sparked renewed fighting between government troops and rebel forces, the AU said. Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the AU Commission, described the violation of the ceasefire agreement between the government and Darfurian rebel groups as "serious and unacceptable." The AU's statement came amid preparations in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, for the resumption of AU-mediated peace talks between the government of Sudan and two rebel groups in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). In the strongly worded statement, which was released from the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Konare also condemned the rebels for attacks in North and South Darfur in late November. The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan, Jan Pronk, expressed concern on 9 December over the possible negative impact on the Abuja talks of the escalation of violence in Darfur. "This round of negotiations is headed for failure if the parties do not show restraint," Pronk said in a statement. George Somerwill, deputy spokesperson of the United Nations Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS), told IRIN by telephone from Khartoum on Friday that, according to the African Union, fighting also took place between government forces and the SLM/A on Wednesday in the town of Thabit, 50 km southwest of El Fasher in North Darfur. Somerwill said unconfirmed reports indicated that government helicopter gunships bombed the area, but no information regarding casualties was yet available. In a related development, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday that it had written to the current AU chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, urging the pan-African body to speed up its deployment of troops to Darfur and to seek to include the protection of civilians in their mandate. "The African Union still has only 900 troops and monitors on the ground in Darfur, and these forces lack the mandate to protect the hundreds of thousands of civilians who remain at risk of attack," Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a press release. The AU forces "need to secure the rural areas of Darfur as quickly as possible so that 1.8 million people can return home safely and voluntarily," Takirambudde added. Despite the insecurity in Darfur, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) managed to deliver more than 22,000 mt of food to nearly 1.3 million people during November, WFP reported on 9 December in a press release. The assistance reached more people than were fed in October, when armed clashes, civil unrest and banditry restricted WFP deliveries to only 1.1 million of the 1.6 million Darfur residents confirmed by the food agency to be in need, according to WFP. "We are encouraged by our performance in November, but we are still a long way from reaching all those currently in need of assistance in the Darfurs," the press release quoted Carlos Veloso, WFP's Emergency Coordinator for Darfur, as saying. Of the three states, North Darfur was hit hardest by hostilities and WFP was forced to suspend operations across large areas there in November. WFP estimated that at least 200,000 people in North Darfur did not receive food assistance in November because of insecurity. The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops - and militias allegedly allied to the government - against rebels fighting to end what they have called the marginalisation of and discrimination against the region's inhabitants by the state. The conflict has displaced an estimated 1.45 million people and sent another 200,000 fleeing across the border into Chad.