Darfur: Docs call it genocide

2004-06-24 09:38

Boston - A human rights group claims that a genocidal campaign is underway in the Darfur region of Sudan, based on eyewitness accounts of systematic killings, rapes and destroyed villages.

Physicians for Human Rights issued a report on Wednesday blaming the government of Sudan for orchestrating an campaign, with help from Arab militias known as janjaweed, to kill or displace several million black Africans in western Sudan.

The Sudanese government is "targeting several million non-Arab Darfurian inhabitants for removal from this region of the country, either by death (most commonly through immediate violence or slow starvation) or forced migration," the report said.

The Boston-based group called for immediate international intervention. It cited a US Agency for International Development report warning that without intervention, between 300 000 and 1 million civilians could die.

Already, 1.2 million have been displaced, with 200 000 refugees living in Chad in camps and in villages along the Sudan-Chad border, the group warned.

Last month, another group, Human Rights Watch, accused the Sudanese government of "ethnic cleansing" in Darfur.

Sudan's government has denied its forces are engaged in any such campaign, calling it instead a humanitarian crisis resulting from fighting a rebellion by black Muslim tribes in Darfur. It has also denied co-operating with the janjaweed militias.

Physicians for Human Rights said two of its staffers collected testimonies from refugees in eastern Chad and along the Sudan-Chad border during a two-week period in May.

Systematic rape

They found consistent patterns of actions in six categories that the group believes would indicate a genocide is occurring: attacks on and destruction of villages, the destruction of livelihoods and means of survival, the pursuit of villagers to eradicate them, the targeting non-Arabs and the systematic rape of women.

"There's a clear intent to destroy non-Arab families in Darfur and all means of livelihoods," said John Hefferman, one of the group's workers who collected the information.

The dictionary defines genocide as "the systematic killing of a racial or cultural group." The US government is reviewing whether Darfur qualifies for the designation.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he wasn't ready to describe the situation in Darfur "as genocide or ethnic cleansing yet," but he called it "a tragic humanitarian situation". He plans to visit Sudan soon to make a first-hand assessment of the situation in the province.

Physicians for Human Rights

- AP