FRANTIC diplomatic efforts were being made yesterday to keep foreign peacekeepers in Sudan’s war-torn western region of Darfur as government troops continued a week-long assault on rebel-held villages.
Human rights groups gave warning that the region was poised to topple into an abyss of rape and genocide if African Union soldiers leave at the end of the month as scheduled.
The Sudanese Government is blocking the arrival of a United Nations force and yesterday appeared to order the immediate withdrawal of AU soldiers.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have been made homeless since fighting began in 2003 between rebels and government forces.
James Smith, the chief executive of the Aegis Trust, which campaigns against genocide, said that the expulsion of peacekeepers would make it impossible for aid agencies to help Darfur’s displaced millions.
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“By crippling that lifeline, the Government of Sudan is deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. Under the terms of the United Nations Genocide Convention, this constitutes genocide,” he said.
Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, called on the Sudanese Government to reconsider its position.
Darfur’s rebels took up arms in 2003 against a government they accused of neglect. The Government in Khartoum responded with a scorched-earth policy. It enlisted the support of the Janjawid, whose mounted fighters destroyed villages suspected of harbouring rebels.
More than a quarter of a million people have died from fighting, disease or hunger, with two and a half million in squalid aid camps. Last week the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to deploy 20,000 troops and police in Darfur. They would replace a cash-strapped force of 7,000 African soldiers, which has struggled to protect civilians and aid workers in an area the size of France.
The plan was rejected by the Sudanese Government, which said it would not allow UN troops on its soil.
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Instead, Khartoum is reported to have launched a fresh wave of attacks on villages in northern Darfur. Yesterday a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the AU had indicated that it did not have the resources to stay past the end of the month.
“If they are unable to continue with their assignment in Darfur beyond September 30, then they have to leave before that date,” he said.
A second spokesman later clarified the position after hurried meetings with AU officials, saying that the African troops could stay if their mandate was renewed. But Baba Gana Kingibe, the head of the AU mission in Sudan, said that his organisation had reaffirmed a decision to end its mandate in Darfur on September 30.
David Mozersky, of the International Crisis Group, said that the only hope lay with a renewed AU mandate: “We cannot allow there to be a vacuum. That would be a disaster.”
Khartoum plans to send 10,000 of its own troops to Darfur as part of a peace force. Aid workers are dismayed by the proposal and point out that Sudanese soldiers have been responsible for some of the worst atrocities.
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One rebel faction signed a peace agreement with the Government in May but the violence has intensified. Eight aid workers were killed in July, making it the bloodiest month since fighting began.
Figures of peril
6 million
population
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33.6 million
directly affected by the conflict
1.8 million
displaced from their homes
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2.7 million
receiving food aid
12%
malnourished
250,000sqkm
almost twice the size of England
7,000
African Union peacekeepers