Thousands still fleeing attacks in Darfur

Thousands are still fleeing for their lives from militias and aerial bombardments in the western region of Darfur, despite claims by the government this week that the war is over. Every day for the last three weeks, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) had been observing "hundreds" of families, numbering between 10 and 20 per family, fleeing into Chad, MSF's Astrid Castelein told IRIN from Tine Chad. MSF staff running mobile clinics had seen the refugees arriving along a 100-km stretch of border south of Tine, she said, many of them from Karnoi in western Darfur. Thousands of refugees are already encamped around Tine Chad, separated from Tine Sudan by just a dry river bed. Refugees interviewed by IRIN at the end of January said they had fled from government Antonov aircraft indiscriminately bombing their villages in Darfur. The refugees were exhausted after days of walking to cross the border, said Castelein, with many of their cattle having died en route. Food shortages were becoming an increasing problem as well as water, she said, because the town's few wells were unable to cope with the influx. Sources in western Darfur told IRIN that government-aligned Arab militias, known as the Janjawid, who are an armed cavalry force, were still "very active" south of Junaynah in the areas around Murnei and Gukor. In the last few days, about 8,000 people had arrived in Junaynah from Gukor, bringing the total number of displaced in the town to between 35,000 and 45,000. An MP from Darfur told IRIN that several villages had been attacked and burned by militias on Tuesday in the Shattay area of southern Darfur. A spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and its coordinator, Abu Bakr Hamid al-Nur, told IRIN that on Tuesday military aircraft had dropped bombs about 60 km north of al-Fashir in northern Darfur, and the previous day on the Girgira area near the border with Chad. Meanwhile, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il said on Monday that military operations in the region had been put "behind us", and that the government had now "entered the political phase of the conflict". A government statement declared an end to military operations "in the entire region of Darfur". Both Darfur's rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the JEM have rejected the claims. Al-Nur of the JEM, told IRIN on Tuesday that rebel forces had temporarily evacuated the three main towns of Tine Sudan, Karnoi and Ambara, due to heavy government aerial bombardments, but were still fully in control of all the region's rural areas and other towns. The government also declared a general amnesty for armed groups in Darfur if they handed over their arms within a month, as well as unfettered access to humanitarian aid. All weapons would be collected from individuals and groups, by the Sudanese National Armed Forces, which would be mandated to control arms in the region. Al-Nur described the government's statement as "nonsense". Other observers have noted that the government army is heavily implicated in the attacks on civilians, with numerous witnesses reporting joint Janjawid-army attacks on villages. JEM rejected outright a government call for a national reconciliation conference to be held in Sudan. "We will not attend any meeting in Sudan. We do not trust the government," said Al-Nur. "It has to be outside. If they want to solve the problem, let them call a conference in any other country with the presence of the international community there, and we will come and talk." The UN, meanwhile, has welcomed the government's move on humanitarian aid, saying that up to now it had been "prevented" from providing aid in the region. "This represents a breakthrough, since for months we have been prevented from reaching large numbers of displaced civilians in what is one of the worst emergencies in Africa," said Jan Egeland, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator. "We must now ensure that this positive development becomes a reality."