Arab militia kill at least 56 in Sudan

ARAB militiamen killed at least 56 people in a raid in western Sudan, villagers said yesterday, just days after the government declared the troubled region was stable.

The militiamen, known as janjaweed, raided the village of Abga Rajil, 30 miles south of Nyala town, on Saturday, witnesses said.

Abdel-Rahman Rizk, 29, speaking at a Nyala hospital bed where he was recovering from a bullet wound to the thigh, said the militiamen arrived on horses, camels and a car, and surrounded the village.

"They were firing, and people were scattering. They set fire to the houses and then they started picking off people as they ran out of their houses," he said.

Ibrahim Adam, also from the village, said: "The tally of those we buried was 56. Forty of them we buried in one grave."

Others from the area gave the same figure, although an official from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), one of the two main rebel groups in Darfur, said he had understood 46 were killed.

Independent verification is hard to obtain in the remote Darfur region.

Villagers and human rights groups accuse Khartoum of arming the janjaweed to loot and burn African villages and fight a proxy war against rebels who launched a revolt last year demanding a fairer share of power and resources.

The government denies the charge, calling the janjaweed outlaws.

The United Nations says fighting in the impoverished and arid Darfur region has displaced about a million people and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The rebels signed a cease-fire with the government in early April, but have since accused it of several violations.

The reports of new violence come as an influential think- tank said yesterday that starvation and disease could kill 350,000 Sudanese if the world fails to quell the violence in Darfur.

"Urgent international action is required on several fronts if ‘Darfur 2004’ is not to join ‘Rwanda 1994’ as shorthand for international shame," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report, referring to the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Rwandans.

"What UN officials have already called the worst humanitarian situation in the world today could claim an additional 350,000 in the next nine months, mainly from starvation and disease," it added.

Western powers should mount an aggressive diplomatic campaign to ensure Khartoum implements a promise to provide immediate, full access for aid operations to war-hit populations, including opening the rail line so the UN can deliver food and medicine from Port Sudan, the ICG said.

It recommended that the United States and European Union impose targeted sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes against officials of the Khartoum government most directly responsible for the conduct of the conflict in Darfur.

The ICG added: "There is just enough time to save the hundreds of thousands of lives directly threatened by government-supported janjaweed militias and looming starvation, but only if the world acts very urgently. If ‘never again’ means anything, then it’s now or never in Darfur."