Annan opens talks on Darfur as killings continue

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened a high-level meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday as rebels accused the Sudanese government and allied militias, known as Janjawid, of continuing attacks on civilians, and called on the international community to help prevent the violence.

Jar el Naby, a commander with the Sudan Liberation Army, said five people were killed in attacks on Wednesday in the village of Bir Maza in North Darfur. The dead included a young boy and a mentally ill man.

"They attacked the area with 200 janjawid militia on horses and camels," El Naby said. "We want to demand that the international community and especially the UN save our civilians." An Antonov plane, he added, had also been used to drop bombs on the village.

Before the high-level meeting in Ethiopia, the Sudanese government had indicated it may be willing to accept greater United Nations support for the African Union mission, but insisted that peacekeeping operations in the region remain under AU control.

"In relation to the proposal made by the UN Secretary-General, this confirms the fact that all people are looking for a new alternative," Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha told reporters in the capital, Khartoum, late on Wednesday. Sudan, he added, was aware that the AU needed "technical support" but would "not accept any international troops under the leadership of the UN".

In the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Annan said on Wednesday the UN had not given up on its plan to send peacekeepers to Darfur.

"We are looking at the possibility of putting UN observers or some international presence on the border and working with the government of Chad to ensure that the refugees in Chad are protected and to ensure that cross-border attacks would also be minimised," he told reporters before flying to Ethiopia.

"We have not given up the idea of strengthening the force in Darfur because you need to do the two," he added. "If you abandon Darfur and try to strengthen the Chad side of the border, it is not going to work."

The violence has spilled across the border into Chad, and tens of thousands of displaced Darfuris eke out a tenuous existence in camps along the Sudan-Chad border.

Oxfam warned that water supplies in eastern Chad were stretched and may not be able to meet the needs of thousands of people fleeing the violence. Oxfam said it may have to cut the daily rations allotted to the Sudanese refugees, noting that hundreds of displaced Chadians had been arriving daily in safe areas near the refugee camps after a week of attacks on their own villages.

"Our biggest concern is that our pumping station in Goz Beida, where many displaced people are arriving, is already working at full capacity to provide 350,000 litres of water to the camp and the community every day. If more people arrive, we may find it difficult to help them," Roland van Hauwermeiren, head of Oxfam's operations in eastern Chad, said on Thursday.

At least 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Darfur in the conflict between government forces, allied militias and rebels seeking greater autonomy, and more than two million others have been displaced.

Critics have charged that the cash-strapped AU mission cannot effectively protect civilians in Darfur given that it has only about 7,000 peacekeepers monitoring the remote region. In September, the AU threatened to pull out but agreed to remain in the region until the end of 2006 to prevent a security vacuum.

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