Janjaweed militia recruited for Sudan police

The UN yesterday reached agreement with Sudan over the implementation of a Security Council resolution which gave Sudan 30 days to disarm the Janjaweed militia, who have been blamed for the killing of thousands of people in Darfur and the displacement of more than 1.2 million people from their homes.

But although the Khartoum regime has sent extra police to the region, there has been little sign in Darfur that the activities of the Janjaweed have been in any way curtailed.

On the contrary, there are reports from new refugees arriving in the Kalma refugee camp, outside Kass, where 80,000 people have gathered, that Sudanese government aircraft have been involved in fresh bombing attacks on nearby villages.

UNICEF has reports of recent attacks in the area and people living in the camp have been attacked by Janjaweed.

Yesterday, Sacha Westerbeek, UNICEF’s communications officer in Darfur, said the Khartoum government appeared to be attempting to placate the militia that it armed by providing jobs for them in the police force.

"This is something that has happened in the last weeks," she said. "They want to smooth things out and give the Janjaweed a chance."

The Sudanese government’s initial plan was to send 600 extra police to the region, a figure that has now risen to 12,000. But Ms Westerbeek said the move had dented confidence in the impartiality of the police and left refugees in the camps reluctant to accept government assurances that it is safe to return to their homes.

"People have lost confidence in the police," she said.

"This is one of the issues why people are not keen on going back to their villages. More and more Janjaweed are joining the police."

While the United States Congress has called the attacks genocide, a European Union fact-finding mission yesterday rejected the term - but still criticised the Sudanese government.

"We are not in the situation of genocide," said Pieter Feith, an adviser to Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, after returning from Sudan.

"But it is clear there is widespread, silent and slow killing going on, and village burning on a fairly large scale.

"There are considerable doubts as to the willingness of Sudan’s government to assume its duty to protect its civilian population against attacks."

Sudan said yesterday that it expected to meet the UN deadline for it to improve security and human rights in the Darfur region within three weeks.

The UN has threatened to consider sanctions unless Sudan proves it is serious about disarming the Arab militias in the area.

"We have a shortage of time but we think we can do it," the country’s foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, said.

The claims came as the full horror of one of the worst outrages of the conflict emerged for the first time.

People who were herded into the town of Kailek, in south Darfur, recounted how the Janjaweed held them prisoner for 42 days while their leaders were systematically executed and the women raped.

A UN report on the situation in the town earlier in the year warned that several children were dying in the town every day from malnutrition.

Yesterday, Adam Hamed Adam, the town’s chief, said that 650 children died during the ordeal.

He said people from 26 surrounding villages were herded into Kailek.

A Janjaweed leader then ordered the execution of the village leaders and young men.

Mr Adam said 380 people were executed during the pogrom; another 580, including pregnant women, the disabled and many of the older people, were killed in the initial attack. A further 671 people died from illness and lack of food during the pogrom, he said.

"The strong people ran to the mountains and the disabled and pregnant women, and the old women and the old men, were all killed.

"After they killed the people, they ran on their horses and began to collect the people who had run away. They brought them into the village and surrounded us for 42 days.

"They came and selected the youths and they killed them. And then they selected the chiefs and they killed them. And they found some of their old enemies and they killed those too."

He said that the government had sent officials to speak to him in an attempt to persuade the refugees to return to their wrecked villages, but he had refused because he did not believe that they would be safe from further attack.

"We feel that we are prisoners here. We feel we are surrounded and that we are in a big prison," he said.

"They wanted me to say that they should go back. The security officer came last night and told me to tell them. They told me they didn’t want us to stay here. There is pressure on the government to make their face look smart but the people refuse. Even if they say they will kill me, I won’t go back."

Increasing malnutrition and disease are giving concern to the aid agencies working in Darfur, with staff working for Medicines Sans Frontires in south Darfur reporting that children are dying every day because of a lack of food. Torrential rain is hampering relief efforts and creating the ideal conditions for the spread of disease.

Some areas of eastern Darfur remain completely inaccessible, raising serious concerns about the condition of the people trapped in that area.

Reports of fresh attacks are coming in daily. UNICEF has reported that 11 people were killed in a Janjaweed attack on a village 30 kilometres east of Kalma camp on 21 July. People from the village escaped on a lorry to Kalma. The UN organisation also reported that a group of men in uniforms and thought to be Janjaweed - the Sudanese government has equipped the militia with uniforms - entered the camp on 20 July and attacked its inhabitants.

On Sunday, one group of new arrivals at Kalma said that their village had been attacked by Sudanese aircraft and by Janjaweed and government troops. Their accounts were supported by aid workers in Nyala. Refugees at Kalma also reported that gunshots had been heard in the camp and that it was believed that Janjaweed soldiers were firing at the camp.

UNICEF figures for the number of people driven from their homes by the conflict suggest that there have been 500,748 in west Darfur, 324,215 in north Darfur and 225,493 in south Darfur.

At least 130,000 people have fled to neighbouring Chad, according to UNICEF, although that figure is considered to be conservative by other agencies, who have reported that as many as 200,000 people may have crossed the border.