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Sudan's rights record 'horrific'
12/03/2008 08:30 - (SA)
Washington - Sudan's human rights record remained "horrific" last year, with humanitarian workers among targets of increased violence in the five-year-old war in the country's Darfur region, the United States State Department said on Tuesday.
Despite the signing of a peace agreement in 2006, the region sank further into chaos as the government continued to bomb villages, and rebel groups splintered and stepped up their attacks, the annual US report on human rights around the world said.
"Sudan's human rights record remained horrific, with continued reports of extrajudicial killings, torture, beatings, and rape by government security forces and their proxy militia in Darfur," the document said.
Khartoum obstructed international efforts to deploy an African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force, and government security forces blocked humanitarian aid, the State Department said. Humanitarian workers increasingly were among the targets of the violence.
"According to the United Nations, 13 human rights workers were killed, 59 were assaulted, 61 were arrested and detained, and 147 were kidnapped during the year," the report said.
Since 2003, at least 200 000 people were believed to have died from violence, hunger and disease in Sudan, the report said. The US government called the conflict genocide in 2004.
By the end of 2007, the conflict had left more than two million people internally displaced and another 231 000 had sought refuge across the border in Chad, the State Department said.
- Reuters
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