KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Fighting between Arab and African tribes has killed at least 70 people and displaced thousands more this week in the Darfur region of western Sudan, a member of parliament for the area said Wednesday.
Khalil Ahmed Abdullah told Reuters the clashes had escalated from a dispute between individuals to a genocide tribal conflict which had displaced 35,000 people from an area in the south of Darfur over the past four days. "Only 14,000 of them have been accounted for. We don’t know where the others are," Abdullah said in Khartoum. Abdullah said the clashes did not involve Darfur rebels and Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, who the rebels say have conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the area with government backing. Khartoum denies the accusation.
African leaders meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa meanwhile Wednesday were considering sending troops to the Darfur region to protect the one million civilians who have fled marauding Arab militias, a senior African Union official said. Four African presidents, including South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, the new AU president, were due to report to the full summit by Thursday, the official told Reuters. "They have established a committee to discuss expanding the mandate of the AU to protecting the civilians in Darfur," he said.
Also Wednesday British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Sudanese government to to expect tougher international action if it fails to help aid get through to starving people in Darfur. Blair told parliament that the food needed to ease the humanitarian crisis in the region was in place was in place and plans had been agreed on ways to tackle militia activity. "We expect the Government of Sudan to cooperate in this and if they do not so-operate we will have to consider what further measures we take," he said. "It is not acceptable if the aid is there that it does not get through to the displaced people."
A U.N. official in Sudan was not able to verify the number of dead or displaced. "The last that we heard from there was that the situation had calmed down," the official said. A U.N. security team was assessing whether it was necessary to withdraw U.N. staff from the area, the official added.
|