Sudanese forces are raping non-Arab women and girls, bombing civilians and committing other atrocities in what may amount to "crimes against humanity" in western Darfur province, according to a preliminary UN report.
The report, by a UN team of experts who visited some of the estimated 110,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad earlier this month, was obtained Wednesday by reporters.
PHOTO: AP
"The mission was able to identify disturbing patterns of massive human rights violations in Darfur, many of which may constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity," it said.
The government has denied that it is responsible for any atrocities.
The report, which said the atrocities against Africans were being committed by government forces and by Arab militias, was to be presented to the 53-nation UN Human Rights Commission in time for it to be considered before the current six-week session ends today.
But it was held up after the Sudanese government said Monday that it would allow a visit by UN experts to check on the situation in Darfur. That visit, which was intended to verify accounts of the atrocities, was supposed to have taken place parallel to the visit to Chad, but the Sudanese government delayed granting permission.
The team left Geneva for the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Tuesday and hoped to go to Darfur yesterday. Human rights groups said they were suspicious that the government had delayed granting permission to keep the report from coming before the commission this year.
"Denying the United Nations access is one of the delaying tactics the Sudanese government is using to pull the wool over the eyes of the international community," said Joanna Weschler of Human Rights Watch.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the commission earlier this month that he had "a deep sense of foreboding" after hearing initial reports from UN officials and human rights groups that Arab militia groups, reportedly with government backing, were engaged in "ethnic cleansing" against Africans in Darfur province.
The report from the team that went to Chad said the Sudanese government is campaigning to put down a rebellion in a conflict that has intensified since early last year. The rebels have been demanding the government do more for the large, poverty-stricken area.
"There was a remarkable consistency in the witness testimony received by the mission in all places visited and in discussions with refugees who had entered Chad both many months ago and also very recently," the report said.
It said many witnesses said the government was using aircraft to attack villages and towns and that government forces or so-called Janjaweed militias followed up with land attacks.
"Janjaweed were invariably said to use horses and camels, while government soldiers were described as traveling in military vehicles," it said.
It said the attacks often destroyed crops and property, but that there were also frequent reports of killings.
And, it said, "a policy of using rape and other serious forms of sexual violence as a weapon of war seems to exist."
"There are consistent reports amongst refugee women from various locations that `men in uniform' raped and abused women and young girls."
Rape was often committed by more than one man, sometimes in front of the victim's family, it said.
The effect was to cause hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, it said. It said that, besides the refugees already in Chad, 700,000 people were believed to be homeless in Darfur as a result of the campaign.
The report was obtained as officials from the Sudanese government and two rebel groups met in Chad to discuss a peaceful end to a rebellion.
A 45-day cease-fire was signed April 8 to allow UN and humanitarian agencies access to the region, but so far the government has allowed only a handful of aid workers into.
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