Militia attacks in Darfur intensified in April - UN

Militia attacks and other forms of violence in Sudan's western region of Darfur continued to cause human suffering in the strife-torn area in April, a senior UN official told the Security Council. "Attacks on civilians, rape, kidnapping and banditry actually increased from the previous month," Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hédi Annabi, told the Council on Thursday when he presented UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s latest report on Darfur. "While there was no evidence of direct involvement by regular government forces last month, there were widespread reports of abuse by militia," he added. The report said the government had made some efforts to restrain its Popular Defense Forces militia and prevented some criminal acts, but these efforts were "evidently inadequate", judging from the extensive reports of abuse against civilians by those groups in areas not controlled by rebels. The main Darfur rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, carried out attacks on police and militia in April. They also took commercial, private and NGO vehicles at gunpoint "on a scale that suggests these acts are approved by their leadership," the report noted. Staff members from humanitarian organisations were subjected to increased harassment by local authorities, particularly in South Darfur, Annabi told the Council. This, he added, had complicated the efforts of the humanitarian community to sustain the 2.45 million conflict-affected civilians in Darfur. Short-term stability in the region, he added, would require considerable strengthening of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which currently consisted of 2,409 troops and 244 police. "The Council applauds the vital leadership role the African Union (AU) is playing in Darfur and the work of AMIS on the ground," the Council president for May, Ambassador Ellen Margrethe Løj of Denmark, said in a statement on Thursday. The Council supported the decision taken by the AU’s Peace and Security Council on 28 April to expand its mission in Darfur to 7,731 personnel by the end of September 2005, she added. "The Security Council welcomes the ongoing deployment of UNMIS [the UN Mission in Sudan] and looks forward to close coordination and cooperation between UNMIS and AMIS," the Council president noted. According to the report, events in April had demonstrated clearly that without progress on the political level, the civilian population would continue to suffer. Talks between the rebel movements and the government of Sudan in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, stalled in December. The AU had been trying to revive the negotiations, but it was not yet clear whether the parties were committed to meaningful negotiations, Annabi said. "I call on all sides at the talks and on the ground to recognise that this is their choice, and ending this tragedy is their responsibility," the UN Secretary-General said in the report. The war in Darfur pits Sudanese government troops and militias - allegedly allied to the government - against rebels fighting to end what they have called marginalisation and discrimination of the region's inhabitants by the state. Over 2.4 million people continue to be affected by the conflict, 1.86 million of whom are internally displaced or have been forced to flee to neighbouring Chad.