Arabs pile into Darfur to take land 'cleansed' by janjaweed

Source: The Independent on Sunday.
By Steve Bloomfield, Africa Correspondent
Published: 14 July 2007.

Arabs from Chad and Niger are crossing into Darfur in "unprecedented" numbers, prompting claims that the Sudanese government is trying systematically to repopulate the war- ravaged region.

An internal UN report, obtained by The Independent, shows that up to 30,000 Arabs have crossed the border in the past two months. Most arrived with all their belongings and large flocks. They were greeted by Sudanese Arabs who took them to empty villages cleared by government and janjaweed forces.

One UN official said the process "appeared to have been well planned". The official continued: "This movement is very large. We have not seen such numbers come into west Darfur before."

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, sent a team to the border with Chad at the end of May to interview the new arrivals. Fighting in eastern Chad has been steadily increasing and it was thought that many could be refugees. But only a very small number have required support from UNHCR.

"Most have been relocated by Sudanese Arabs to former villages of IDPs (internally displaced people) and more or less invited to stay there," said the UN official.

The arrivals have been issued with official Sudanese identity cards and awarded citizenship, and analysts say that by encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other parts of Sudan to move to Darfur the Sudanese government is making it "virtually impossible" for displaced people to return home.

James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, said the revelations proved that the Sudanese government was "cynically trying to change the demographics of the whole region", adding: "If the ethnic cleansing has been consolidated because the land has been repopulated it will become irreversible. The peace process will fall to pieces."

Repopulation has also been happening in south Darfur where Arabs from elsewhere in Sudan have been allowed to move into villages that were once home to local tribes. Aid agency workers said the Arabs were presented as "returning IDPs".

Before the conflict started in 2003, Darfur was home to seven million people, mainly from three African tribes, Fur, Marsalit and Zargahwa. Darfur literally translates as "Land of the Fur". But some 2.5 million have now been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Sudanese troops and planes, and Arab militia on horseback known as janjaweed.

Most are now in camps around Darfur's main towns, relying on handouts from international aid agencies. About 250,000 have become refugees in Chad. A further 1.5 million have been affected by the conflict, meaning at least four million people are now reliant on the 80 or so international aid agencies in the region. More than 200,000 people are believed to have been killed so far during the four-and-a-half-year conflict.

And if Khartoum is moving Arabs from abroad to replace them, diplomats fear that Darfur rebels may try to remove them forcibly. "It could be quite explosive," said one western diplomat. "It is a very serious situation."

Nomadic Arab tribes have been crossing the border between Chad and Sudan for centuries, long before lines were drawn on a map. It is normal for tribes to follow the rains from west to east and back again, searching for fertile grazing land for their cattle. Straight lines carve out the northern borders of the five countries which spread across the Sahel, taking no notice of traditional tribal links and nomadic routes.

In Mauritania and Sudan, both countries long ruled by Arabs, black African tribes have suffered most. In Mali, Niger and Chad, the Arab and Tuareg nomads have been suppressed.

Towards the end of last year, Niger announced that it planned forcibly to remove more than 150,000 Arab nomads into Chad. Many of the Arabs, known as Mahamid, moved from Chad in the 1970s after a serious drought. Although the government later rescinded the order, it is thought that many decided to return to Chad voluntarily.

Apart from the 30,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger cited in the UNHCR report there have been consistent rumours that a further 45,000 Arabs from Niger have also crossed over. For most nomads citizenship means very little; the lines that separate the countries of the Sahel have not created a sense of nationality. But for the Khartoum regime it could be pivotal. Elections are to be held in two years, the first since President Omar al-Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989.

Although opinion polling is not very advanced, it is thought that no party is likely to win an overall majority. By providing citizenship for the new arrivals, one Khartoum-based diplomat said, President Bashir could be hoping to bolster his election chances.

For the Arabs who have crossed into Darfur there are both push and pull factors. Drought in parts of northern Africa has forced nomads to look further afield for fertile land. Although the spread of desert is rapidly reducing the amount of land available for farmers and nomads in Darfur, much of the area cleared by the janjaweed and government forces is fertile.

An ethnic cleansing and colonisation strategy that stretches back through history

* EAST TIMOR: The poorest country in Asia, much of East Timor's instability stems from the country's repeated colonisation. Invaded and occupied by Indonesia from 1975 to 1999, hundreds of thousands of Javanese migrants flooded the former Portuguese colony from nearby islands as part of a government-sponsored programme. This led to decades of violent clashes between the indigenous Timorese population, which is 90 per cent Roman Catholic, and the Muslim Javanese migrants. There has been little improvement following the Indonesian withdrawal and East Timor's subsequent independence; in 2006 150,000 East Timor residents were displaced due to conflicts.

* SOVIET UNION: Russia deliberately exported ethnic Russians to restive republics during Soviet times.

Thirty per cent of the population of the Baltic state of Estonia was implanted during the Soviet regime. In 1949, following the annexation of the Baltic states, Stalin, right, deported 42,000 Latvians to Siberia. As a result, the proportion of ethnic Russians there increased from 8.8 per cent in 1935 to 34 per cent by 1989. Stalin's ethnic cleansing - involving 3 million people between 1941 and 1949 - included the deportation of 200,000 Crimean Tatars to central Asia.

* KOSOVO: Currently administered by the UN, this disputed land-locked province in southern Serbia endured conflicts throughout the 1990s, fuelled by ethnic divisions and repression. With Serbian and ethnic Albanian inhabitants vying for supremacy, these struggles came to a head in the mid-1990s, when Serbian forces began a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo's mainly Muslim Albanians. Thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to neighbouring states. Reconciliation between Kosovo's 1.5 million ethnic Albanians and its 100,000 Serbs remains elusive, pending approval of an internationally backed draft plan for virtual independence.

African Union peacekeeper killed in Darfur

Source: CNN, April 15, 2007.

NYALA, Sudan (AP) -- Unidentified gunmen killed a Ghanaian military officer in the African Union's peacekeeping force in the Darfur region and hijacked his car within yards of the AU mission's headquarters, the AU said Sunday.

The officer was traveling alone in his vehicle when he was ambushed in the town of El Fasher late Saturday, AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said.

The ambush took place hours after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte visited the peacekeeper headquarters during his trip to push Sudan's government to let U.N. troops reinforce the AU mission. He was in the capital, Khartoum, on Sunday to meet with Sudanese officials.

The dead officer was the seventh peacekeeper slain this month, raising to 18 the number of AU soldiers killed since the mission deployed in 2004 to try to stop a brutal conflict between ethnic Africans and Arabs. An AU officer also has been a hostage since December.

"If this growing hostility continues, truly the mission will be compromised and we will have to take the necessary measures," Mezni told The Associated Press.

Mezni and other AU officials said they did not know the identity of the gunmen, who struck on the outskirts of El Fasher, a government-controlled town in North Darfur. The 7,000-soldier AU mission has had its headquarters there since deploying to Darfur in 2004.

Mezni said more than 90 vehicles have been hijacked from the AU since the beginning of the mission.

"The AU will not let itself be dragged into the conflict," he said. "This cannot happen. ... We came here to protect civilians. If this is becoming impossible, we will take appropriate measures."

Last week, one soldier from Rwanda's contingent in the AU mission was slain during a patrol in North Darfur and an AU car was stolen during the assault, which took place in a zone controlled by the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, the AU said. Two other Rwandans were wounded.

Earlier this month, five Senegalese peacekeepers were killed in an ambush a day after the deputy commander of the AU force narrowly escaped being shot down in his helicopter as he flew to a meeting with rebels.

More than 200,000 [sic] [400,000 is more accurate] people have been killed in Darfur since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of discrimination against Darfur's ethnic Africans.

The International Criminal Court says the government retaliated by arming militias of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, and has listed 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes against a Sudanese Cabinet minister and a suspected janjaweed chief.

Some rebels also have been accused of abuses. There are almost daily reports of vehicles being hijacked, aid workers assaulted and refugees harassed throughout Darfur, an arid region nearly the size of Texas where many areas are off-limits to the weakly armed AU peacekeepers.

The Sudanese government blocked a plan by the United Nations to replace them with a 22,000-strong U.N. force. But Sudan and the United Nations are now edging toward a compromise that would allow some 3,000 U.N. soldiers to deploy in Darfur as reinforcement to the AU force.

China leans on Sudan to accept peacekeeping plan

Source: CNN.
April 11, 2007.

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China urged Sudan in unusually strong terms on Wednesday to show more flexibility on a peace plan for its devastated Darfur region, but said the international community would get nowhere by dictating terms to Khartoum.

China, which buys much of Sudan's oil and wields veto power on the U.N. Security Council, has been criticized in the West for not using its leverage to force Khartoum to act to curb violence in Darfur, where ethnic tensions erupted into a revolt in 2003.

"We suggest the Sudan side show flexibility and accept this plan," Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun told a news conference on his return from a three-day trip to the African country.

Sudan has rejected U.N.-A.U. force

He was referring to a peace plan put forward by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan to deploy a hybrid African Union-U.N. peacekeeping force. Sudan has had reservations about the deal.

Zhai met Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as well as Foreign Ministry officials and visited refugee camps in Darfur -- a rare step for a Chinese official. He said on Wednesday Beijing was using its influence in its own way and rejected suggestions that it would get further by using threats.

"The international community should pay attention to the way of having consultations with the Sudan government in order to achieve better results. This is my opinion," Zhai said.

"On the Annan plan, China has played an essential role. Just because of the Chinese government, Sudan is adopting a flexible attitude," he said. "China can't do everything, but we respect each other and consult as equals."

But while insisting its role in Sudan is constructive, China has offered Khartoum increased military cooperation. Last week it played host to its Joint Chief of Staff in Beijing.

Chinese weapons are also used by all sides in the Darfur conflict despite an arms embargo on the region.

Calls Janjaweed 'only a group of bandits'

Zhai played down the strength of the government-allied Janjaweed, calling their militias "only a group of bandits". And he said China would not support sanctions against Sudan.

"We should help Sudan resolve this issue instead of creating further problems or complicating the issue. Therefore, we are not in favor of sanctions," he said, adding that it was too early to say if China would veto such a resolution.

Zhai's trip was the latest sign of China's intensifying engagement with Sudan and follows a trip by President Hu Jintao in February.

Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo also discussed promoting diplomatic efforts to resolve the Darfur issue with his U.S. counterpart John Negroponte by telephone earlier this week.

The four-year war in Darfur has killed an estimated 200,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes.

But the Khartoum government has been resisting the deployment of international troops to back ill-equipped African forces.

"Sudan has accepted in principle the three-phased Annan plan. However, on some of the details, it has reservations," Zhai said. "Sudan is most concerned about its sovereignty and territorial integrity."

U.N. fears up to 400 killed in Chad raids

Source: CNN.
April 10, 2007.

GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Up to 400 people, far more than previously feared, were killed in Chad during a cross-border attack by Sudanese Janjaweed militia some 10 days ago, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

Chadian authorities estimated last week that at least 65 people died in the early morning attacks on March 31 on two villages in eastern Chad, Tiero and Marena, home to some 8,000.

The new estimated toll followed a visit to the remote area Sunday by a group of U.N. agencies, which described the scene there as "apocalyptic," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond said.

"Estimates of the number of dead have increased substantially and now range between 200 and 400. Because most of the dead were buried where their bodies were found -- often in common graves owing to their numbers -- we may never know their exact number," he told a briefing.

Survivors identified the attackers as a coalition of well-armed Janjaweed militia "assisted by Chad rebels equipped with heavy weapons and vehicles," he said. It would be one of the most violent single incidents so far recorded on the volatile Chadian-Sudanese border.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Helene Caux said that survivors had reported recognizing some of the Janjaweed as living in Arab settlements around their villages, while others appeared to have crossed the border from Sudan.

The U.N. team found decomposing bodies near the villages, including those of a 30-year-old father of eight. Hundreds of homes had been burned to the ground, and there was an "overwhelming stench" from rotting carcasses of dead animals.

"There were many indications that people had little or no time to flee, given that many essential household goods, food and domestic animals were left behind," Redmond said.

"All along the route to those villages could be seen belongings abandoned along the way by those who collapsed. ... Many died where they fell along the road," he said.

An 8-year-old boy told the U.N. team that he had dropped to the ground to "escape bullets that came like rainfall" as he fled Tiero. A girl his age had died of a gunshot wound to the head as she got up to run, he said.

"The number of survivors who have provided us with heartbreaking testimony such as this is overwhelming. It paints a portrait perhaps better described as a massacre than an attack," Redmond told Reuters.

Khartoum has denied any responsibility for the deadly raids.

The number of wounded in the raids stood at about 80, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Many of those who survived the initial attack, especially elderly and young children, had died in subsequent days from exhaustion and dehydration, often while fleeing, it said.

Some 9,000 Chadians -- mainly women and children -- from the surrounding area had fled after the attacks, joining another 9,000 compatriots who had fled earlier raids, the agency said.

"The whereabouts of many men remain unknown," Redmond said. "This is really a nightmarish situation that is occurring in southeastern Chad."

The villages are in the Wadi-Fira region of Chad's eastern border with Sudan. Chad has identified the raiders, some mounted on camels and horses, as Sudanese Janjaweed militia.

The raids appear to be another spillover of violence from Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in a war between rebels and Sudanese government forces and their allied militias.

The Geneva-based U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has been warning for nearly two years about the spread of unrest from Darfur, "the epicenter of conflict in the region," Redmond said.

"We have seen a dangerous escalation for a long time, not only in Darfur, but in Chad and Central African Republic," he said. "That situation is continuing, as evidenced by the tragedy we just saw in the two villages."

Chad: Rebels driven back after attack on troops

Source: CNN.
April 9, 2007.

N'DJAMENA, Chad (Reuters) -- Chad said it had routed an attack Monday by a rebel convoy of more than 200 vehicles launched from Sudanese territory, just two months after a nonaggression pact signed by the two countries.

Information Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in a statement the rebel forces had been routed after attacking army troops in the border village of Aldjirema. At least eight Chadian soldiers and numerous rebels were killed, he said.

"Chad expects the international community to unequivocally condemn this enemy aggression led from Sudan against Chad and take appropriate measures to compel the Sudanese government to abandon its expansionist plans to destabilize Chad," Doumgor said.

The rebel Chadian National Concord, in a statement signed by its military commander, Mahamad Hassan Kokiss, confirmed heavy fighting had taken place but said government forces had attacked its troops first.

"After six hours of resistance, our forces redeployed to new positions, and the enemy remains within our reach," Kokiss said, saying the fighting violated an agreement signed in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Chad had signed a peace deal with another rebel group in Tripoli in December and a nonaggression pact with Sudan there in February. It was not immediately clear whether Kokiss was referring to either of these.

President Idriss Deby's government said exact casualty figures for the rebel forces were not yet available but 38 of their vehicles were destroyed in the attack.

The Chadian National Concord said the rebels had lost three vehicles and 10 men, while destroying 35 government vehicles and killing numerous soldiers.

Doumgor said the convoy was made up of forces from several rebel groups, including the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development of Mahamat Nouri and the Rally of Democratic Forces led by Tom and Timan Erdimi, nephews of Deby.

The four-year war in Sudan's western region of Darfur has spilled across the border into Chad.

N'Djamena accuses Sudan of backing Chadian rebels based in Darfur, while Sudanese Arab militia known as Janjaweed are raiding ever further into eastern Chad.

Khartoum has denied any support for Chadian insurgents.

Chad: At least 65 killed in Sudan militia raid

Source: CNN.

N'DJAMENA, Chad (Reuters) -- At least 65 people were killed in a cross-border raid by Sudanese Janjaweed militia who torched two villages in eastern Chad, driving up to 8,000 civilians from their homes, Chadian authorities said Tuesday.

Sudan denied any role in the weekend attacks.

Chad's government said its forces killed 25 of the raiders, some mounted on camels and horses, others in vehicles, who destroyed the villages of Tiero and Marena on Saturday in the Wadi-Fira region of the eastern border with Sudan.

"Chadian military authorities reported at least 65 dead just in the village of Tiero," Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, in a briefing on the attacks.

Early reports indicated at least 70 wounded, half of them seriously. The death toll was expected to rise as casualty figures from the second village attacked became available.

Chadian Communication Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said the raiders, whom he identified as Sudanese Janjaweed militia, burned down the two villages, forcing their inhabitants to flee.

"Between 6,000 and 8,000 people are out in the open, without shelter and deprived of everything," he said, adding that government forces had pushed back the attackers.

The raids appeared to be the latest spillover of violence from Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in a war between rebels and Sudanese government forces and their militia allies.

Chad President Idriss Deby, who also faces an insurgency in the east, frequently accuses Sudan of sending the Janjaweed -- feared mounted raiders whose name in Arabic means "devils on horseback" -- across the border to kill and plunder.

But Khartoum denied any responsibility for the latest raid.

"I have not heard anything about this incident. The Sudanese government played no role in this whatsoever," Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig told Reuters in Khartoum, Sudan.

The UNHCR's Redmond said there were reports of "corpses along roadsides" after the raids. He added testimony so far from victims indicated the assault was led by Janjaweed militia.

"Survivors interviewed by UNHCR said their villages were surrounded by men on horseback and camelback, as well as many motor vehicles, some of which were equipped with heavy weaponry. The assailants began to fire at random in the villages and then began pursuing the fleeing population," he said.

At least 2,000 people, mostly women and children, who fled the attacks reached the Goz Amir refugee camp near Koukou, some 28 miles (45 kilometers) west of the two villages, according to UNHCR.

"They say many people are still hiding in the bush, fearful their assailants might still be in the area," Redmond said.

The Janjaweed attackers fled toward the Sudanese border.

Goz Amir camp is already home to more than 19,000 Sudanese refugees from neighboring Darfur.

Sudan has refused to allow the deployment of a strong U.N. force in Darfur to bolster an over-stretched African Union peacekeeping contingent already there.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommended in January sending up to 11,000 peacekeeping soldiers and police to Chad and Central African Republic to secure their porous borders with Darfur and protect civilians and refugees.

But Chad has said it only wants a civil protection force of police and gendarmes in the east.

Refugee crisis threatens to overwhelm Chad

Source: CNN.

ABECHE, Chad (AP) -- Chadian officials expressed concern Tuesday at the growing number of refugees fleeing the conflict in neighboring Sudan, which the U.N. humanitarian chief feared could become an intolerable burden on the country.

John Holmes visited this eastern Chad town on the second leg of a 10-day trip to the region, one week after the new U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs visited Darfur and South Sudan -- part of an effort to improve the bitter conditions under which aid workers have to operate.

"The camps could become an intolerable burden" on eastern Chad's scarce natural resources, Holmes said.

Violence has increasingly been spreading from Darfur into Chad. Nomads are raiding villages, there are intricate ethnic clashes and both the Chadian and the Sudanese governments have been trading accusations that they support each other's rebels groups.

"But one big difference between here and Sudan is that at least here authorities are very cooperative," with the international aid effort, Holmes said after meeting Touka Ramadan Kore, the governor of this eastern Chad region. "Their humanitarian needs are so big that they are happy to have us in the country."

More than 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur during four years of fighting between local rebels, the Sudanese army and their allied janjaweed militias. More than 2 million live in refugee camps scattered over the vast arid region, while another 230,000 now live in refugee camps on the Chadian side of the border.

But janjaweed raids and fighting by rebels along the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border has also spread the crisis into Chad itself, and about 140,000 Chadians moved to the refugee camps after their villages were destroyed.

Holmes said he was aware there were situations where refugee camps offered better living conditions than surrounding villages, which was creating tensions.

"We need to have an integrated approach to the whole region," said Holmes. One of the things he talked about with local authorities was how to ensure natural resources such as water and firewood, along with international aid, were fairly shared by local villagers and refugees.

Aid workers in eastern Chad said they felt they were managing to cope with the refugees from Sudan, but were now more worried with the increasing number of Chadian ones.

"The trend is not going down, because insecurity is still increasing," Kingsley Amanin, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator in Abeche, said of the internally displaced. "It's worrying because we simply don't have the resources to help them right now."

Chadian authorities, who provide protection to the refugee camps and often share a common ethnic background with people fleeing from Darfur, said they hoped Holmes' visit would help raise awareness to the crisis their region is facing.

"Our relations with the U.N. is very good," said Guede Borgou, the chief of staff for eastern Chad's governor. He said he hoped Holmes' visit would further boost cooperation. "It comes at a time when we really need it," he said.

The Sudanese army bombed a border zone with Chad earlier this month and aid workers fear the flow of refugees will only increase.

The Security Council has made plans to deploy 11,000 U.N. peacekeepers along the border to protect refugees, but Chad's President Idriss Deby has seemed uncertain about his recent approval for a military component to the mission.

Holmes said his brief did not include discussions on the peacekeeping mission, but said that "deploying a force along the border is a priority" and hoped it would occur soon.

U.N. envoy: 'Fragile' balance in Darfur could disintegrate

Source: CNN.

ES SALLAM, Sudan (Reuters) -- The new U.N. humanitarian chief warned Sunday that humanitarian efforts in Darfur could collapse if the situation deteriorates and aid workers are prevented from doing their work.

The warning came on a day of unusually heavy condemnation of the violence in Darfur, with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain proposing a no-fly zone over the region and German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying the suffering of the Sudanese people had become "unbearable."

The U.N. chief, John Holmes, spoke while visiting a refugee camp on the outskirts of the town of El-Fasher in Darfur. He was on his first tour of the troubled region since becoming the international body's top humanitarian official. (Watch a U.S. senator say too little is being done to help the refugees )

Holmes had been barred by Sudanese soldiers from visiting another camp on Saturday, emphasizing, he said, the difficulties faced by aid workers here.

"This humanitarian effort is fragile," Holmes said, speaking from a camp that now houses some 45,000 people who have fled the violence. "If the situation deteriorates, it could collapse."

Holmes, who met with delegates of international aid groups during his two-day visit, said obstruction from Sudan's government and insecurity on the ground have created an environment where "morale is fragile" and could push aid workers to pull out.

"The risk is high," he said. "It is not imminent, but if things deteriorate, people may not want to maintain their efforts."

In need of aid are some 4 million people in Darfur whom the U.N. says have been caught in the midst of fighting between rebels, the government and the pro-government janjaweed.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced in four years of fighting, with janjaweed Arab militias held responsible for widespread atrocities against ethnic African civilians.

The U.N. says the conflict has chased 86,000 people from their homes just this year and blames the vast majority of these new refugees on violence perpetrated by central Sudanese government forces or their allied janjaweed militias.

Former rebels aligned with Minni Minawi, who signed a peace deal with the government last May and has joined forces with Sudan's central government, are increasingly blamed for the recent violence.

Holmes spoke from a camp called Es Sallam, one of three camps near El Fasher that is overspilling with people. Aid workers are currently negotiating space for a fourth camp to meet the incoming flow of refugees.

Holmes said people in the camp were not starving and health conditions seemed decent.

"This shows the enormous humanitarian effort that has been made for three years," he said, referring to the international aid effort in Darfur, which is the largest in the world with more than $1 billion spent and some 14,000 aid workers in the region.

The governor of north Darfur extended apologies to Holmes on Sunday for his being turned away Saturday when he tried to visit another notorious refugee camp.

Holmes said he accepted the apology but would nonetheless raise the issue with Sudanese officials. He said it illustrated the near-constant problems faced by relief workers trying to deliver aid to Darfur's population.

Meanwhile in Berlin on Sunday, German and British leaders at an EU summit called for an increase of sanctions against the Sudanese government.

"The actions of the Sudanese government are completely unacceptable," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. "We need to get a new resolution in the United Nations which extends the sanctions regime ... We need to consider, in my view, a no-fly zone."

Key facts about Darfur

February 26, 2006.

(Reuters) -- The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor will name the first suspects accused of committing war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region on Tuesday.

Here are some facts about the conflict in the Darfur region.

The conflict.

• Rebels in Sudan's western region of Darfur rose up against the government in February 2003, saying Khartoum discriminated against non-Arab farmers there.
• Khartoum mobilised proxy Arab militia to help quell the revolt. Some militiamen, known locally as Janjaweed, pillaged and burned villages, and killed civilians. The government has called the Janjaweed outlaws and denied supporting them.
• Experts have estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in the region since early 2003, some crossing the border into Chad exacerbating a refugee crisis there.
• The United Nations calls Darfur one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The United States says the violence in Darfur amounts to genocide.

Cease-fires:

• A ceasefire was agreed in Darfur in April 2004 and the African Union eventually sent nearly 7,000 peacekeepers with a mandate to monitor the peace and protect those displaced in the camps. The ceasefire has been violated frequently, with fighting blamed on government troops, rebels and Janjaweed militias.
• A peace deal in May 2006 was signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions. The agreement was almost immediately rejected by many people in Darfur who said it did not go far enough in ensuring their security. A new rebel coalition has since formed and renewed hostilities with the government.

Peacekeeping force for Darfur:

• In August 2006, the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution on deploying a 22,500-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur to replace and absorb African Union forces who have been unable to stem the violence in western Sudan.
• It invited the consent of Sudan, which has so far refused.
  Then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested a hybrid force, which Khartoum also rejected. But Sudan has agreed to allow a "hybrid operation", involving technical U.N. support personnel, to deploy to Darfur to help the AU. It has allowed the first phase of that three-phased deployment to proceed but has balked at phase two, which involves some 3,000 U.N. personnel, as well as equipment.

Source: CNN.

NOTE: Consider the source and the outcome so far. I give them below a failing grade. I call it complicit.