IDPs lead protest over police raid on fragile camp

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) staged a demonstration on 22 August after Sudanese forces raided one of Darfur’s largest camps to arrest suspects believed to be behind a series of attacks on police stations.

“We will continue the demonstrations until United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon comes,” IDP spokesman Abu Sharad told IRIN from Kalma camp in South Darfur.

He said 2,800 police, army and border intelligence officers surrounded the camp, which hosts an estimated 90,000 people. “They arrested 30 IDPs, burnt down 12 shelters and looted 175 others,” he added.

The Sudanese press reported that police arrested 19 people during the 21 August raid in connection with an incident in which a policeman was killed and eight others injured.

“We will continue to pursue outlaws who terrorise the people and loot their belongings, especially after their attack on a police station in Al Salam IDP camp,” South Darfur police chief Omar Mohammed Ali was quoted as saying.

African Union troops monitoring a fragile truce in the region responded after about eight hours and the UN arrived the next morning, according to Sharad.
 
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesman Maurizio Giuliano said: “We do not have reports about civilians being killed or injured [during the raid].”

Kalma is one of Darfur’s most unstable camps. Two years ago, IDPs set fire to government offices, forcing officials to abandon the camp. IDPs also killed an AU translator in the camp.

The AU has been unable to end the violence in the region and has met resistance in trying to promote a May 2006 peace deal that was signed by only one of three negotiating rebel groups.

Most IDPs in Kalma support Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur, faction leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement, who rejected the peace agreement.

“The government continues to practise brutal killings and displacement of our people in camps after forcing them to flee their villages,” Nour’s group said in a statement on the incident in Kalma.
 
Sudan has agreed to the deployment of a joint UN-AU force of up to 26,000 troops and police – known as UNAMID – expected to help improve security.  

sa/sr