![[Sudan] Bashir.](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/2093.jpg.webp?itok=H20GU4_q "Sudan's President Umar el-Bashir invited the two groups to meet in Khartoum.")
Sudanese President Omar El Bashir has reiterated his rejection of a proposal to deploy a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s Darfur region to replace the African Union force, saying the world body had "an agenda" against his country.
"[The UN] wants to make a pretext through the Darfur issue to control us and to recolonise Sudan," Bashir told reporters in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Sunday. "These powers are imperialistic. We have to act to abort all this aggression against Sudan, all this plotting against Sudan."
Singling out the United Sates, which has increased pressure in recent days for the deployment of the blue berets and threatened unspecified punitive measures if Sudan continues its stance, the president announced that Sudan would restrict the movement of visiting US officials to within 25 km of his presidential palace. Bashir said the US had imposed similar restrictions on his delegation to New York last week, fearing they were "terrorists".
He blamed unnamed "Jewish organizations" for rallying public opinion against Sudan, and insisted that his government would not allow the AU force to be replaced by the UN when its mandate expires in December.
The AU was scheduled to leave Darfur at the end of this month, but voted last week to remain in the region to prevent a security vacuum. It is also stepping up efforts to add more troops to the 7,700 soldiers monitoring the remote region.
"With 7,700 troops we cannot do this job properly," Nourredine Mezni, the AU spokesman in Khartoum, told reporters. "We need several additional battalions."
Responding to reports that the Sudanese Armed Forces had been bombing civilian villages in volatile northern Darfur, displacing thousands, Bashir defended the military action. The army, he said, was engaging rebels who refused to sign the 5 May Darfur Peace deal agreed to by the Sudanese government and one faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army.
On Friday, the UN said the military campaign against rebels in the north Darfur region was harming civilians, mainly through indiscriminate aerial bombardments of villages. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), citing UN rights volunteers and monitors in Sudan, said an estimated 400 new internally displaced persons had arrived in the Rwanda camp in North Darfur, fleeing attacks on 9 and 10 September around Tabarat.
It said the displaced people regularly attributed these aerial bombardments to planes that dropped bombs on villages in what was reported to be an indiscriminate manner, causing civilians to flee as well as killing and injuring others, he said.
"The monitors also reported ongoing sexual and gender-based violence in south Darfur," the OHCHR said. "In Gereida, women were exposed to attacks by armed militias as they conducted income-generating activities."
According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives and some 2 million have been displaced in three years of fighting in Darfur between the Sudanese government, allied militias and rebel forces.
But Bashir told reporters the death-toll estimates were "exaggerated", claiming that no more than 10,000 people had died in the three-year conflict, which began when rebels attacked government positions in the region, complaining that Darfur remained undeveloped due to neglect by the central government.
He described the situation in Darfur as in its best state, referring to government efforts to secure the return of displaced people to their villages and rehabilitate what had been destroyed by the war.
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"[The UN] wants to make a pretext through the Darfur issue to control us and to recolonise Sudan," Bashir told reporters in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Sunday. "These powers are imperialistic. We have to act to abort all this aggression against Sudan, all this plotting against Sudan."
Singling out the United Sates, which has increased pressure in recent days for the deployment of the blue berets and threatened unspecified punitive measures if Sudan continues its stance, the president announced that Sudan would restrict the movement of visiting US officials to within 25 km of his presidential palace. Bashir said the US had imposed similar restrictions on his delegation to New York last week, fearing they were "terrorists".
He blamed unnamed "Jewish organizations" for rallying public opinion against Sudan, and insisted that his government would not allow the AU force to be replaced by the UN when its mandate expires in December.
The AU was scheduled to leave Darfur at the end of this month, but voted last week to remain in the region to prevent a security vacuum. It is also stepping up efforts to add more troops to the 7,700 soldiers monitoring the remote region.
"With 7,700 troops we cannot do this job properly," Nourredine Mezni, the AU spokesman in Khartoum, told reporters. "We need several additional battalions."
Responding to reports that the Sudanese Armed Forces had been bombing civilian villages in volatile northern Darfur, displacing thousands, Bashir defended the military action. The army, he said, was engaging rebels who refused to sign the 5 May Darfur Peace deal agreed to by the Sudanese government and one faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army.
On Friday, the UN said the military campaign against rebels in the north Darfur region was harming civilians, mainly through indiscriminate aerial bombardments of villages. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), citing UN rights volunteers and monitors in Sudan, said an estimated 400 new internally displaced persons had arrived in the Rwanda camp in North Darfur, fleeing attacks on 9 and 10 September around Tabarat.
It said the displaced people regularly attributed these aerial bombardments to planes that dropped bombs on villages in what was reported to be an indiscriminate manner, causing civilians to flee as well as killing and injuring others, he said.
"The monitors also reported ongoing sexual and gender-based violence in south Darfur," the OHCHR said. "In Gereida, women were exposed to attacks by armed militias as they conducted income-generating activities."
According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives and some 2 million have been displaced in three years of fighting in Darfur between the Sudanese government, allied militias and rebel forces.
But Bashir told reporters the death-toll estimates were "exaggerated", claiming that no more than 10,000 people had died in the three-year conflict, which began when rebels attacked government positions in the region, complaining that Darfur remained undeveloped due to neglect by the central government.
He described the situation in Darfur as in its best state, referring to government efforts to secure the return of displaced people to their villages and rehabilitate what had been destroyed by the war.
nk/mw/eo
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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