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| Africa Horn |
| Sudan's Government Steps Up Darfur Attacks, Rights Group Says |
| 2006-04-28 |
| Sudan's government is stepping up a military offensive in the Darfur region in a bid to win territory before an April 30 deadline to conclude peace talks with rebels, a U.S.-based human rights group said. Attacks this week on rebel-held areas in southern Darfur, using Antonov aircraft and helicopter gun ships, have displaced thousands of civilians, Human Rights Watch said today in an e- mailed statement. It urged the United Nations to accelerate efforts to send UN peacekeepers to the western Sudanese region. ``Khartoum's new attacks on civilians show the Security Council needs to move quickly on a UN protection force for Darfur,'' Peter Takirambudde, Human Rights Watch's Africa director, said in the statement. Sudan is blocking UN efforts to send a peacekeeping force, saying it won't consider accepting UN troops until it reaches a peace agreement with rebels at talks under way in Abuja, the Nigerian capital. The African Union's chief mediator, Salim Ahmed Salim, yesterday submitted a draft peace deal and urged government and rebel negotiators to sign it by April 30. The three-year-old Darfur conflict has killed tens of thousands of civilians and forced more than 2 million from their homes, the UN says. The UN calls Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and the U.S. government has accused the Sudanese government of committing genocide in the region. ``This is decision time; no more procrastination,'' Salim told government and rebel negotiators yesterday, according to an e-mailed statement. ``Every journey has a destination, for the Abuja peace talks, the end is at hand.'' |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 HRW is out of it's league here. This is real abuse. Watch him scurry back to something easy in the West when he has to report it as muzzie on muzzie violence. Because HRW main office knows that that's OK. It's only the satanic west that abuses human rights. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-04-28 16:21 |
| #1 What the hell is Human Rights Watch doing in the Darfur? They should be down at Gitmo making sure that the hummus is the right temperature as not to offend the muslims. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2006-04-28 10:03 |