Darfur conflict study sees death of a way of life

JOHANNESBURG -- The nearly 3-year-old conflict in Sudan's western region of Darfur, which has killed an estimated 200,000 people or more, also has killed the way of life for roughly 2 million people, according to a Physicians for Human Rights report released today.

In one of the most detailed studies of the Darfur conflict, investigators from the Boston-based group examined the fate of three villages, interviewing dozens of survivors and collecting hundreds of photographs and hand-drawn maps.

They concluded that Sudan's government and pro-government Arab militia systematically destroyed the livelihood of residents.

The report contends that by doing so, the attackers committed a little-discussed form of genocide. One clause in the UN's Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide as a group inflicting upon another group ''conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part."

''Not only did the attackers destroy these people's livelihood, but they were driven out to this desert deathtrap, where you virtually cannot survive unless you are getting some outside assistance," John Heffernan, an investigator for Physicians for Human Rights and the report's author, said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., yesterday. ''And on top of that, the government of Sudan has been blocking assistance to people."

Heffernan recalled one trip in eastern Chad along the Sudanese border in which he and a colleague, Dr. Jennifer Leaning, codirector of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University, came upon nearly 20,000 refugees from Darfur.

''It was almost biblical in terms of a catastrophe," he said. ''There was 18,000 or 20,000 people huddled under these little tiny trees, trying to seek some refuge from the sun and the wind. And there were heaps and mounds of animal carcasses being burned. . . . These people didn't have access to healthcare, food, or water, and as a result a lot of them perished."

In three trips to the region between May 2004 and July, the group's investigators interviewed survivors from the villages of Furawiya, Bendisi, and Terbeba, which were far from one another and attacked at different periods.

But the researchers found the attacks followed similar patterns: early morning raids by armed men called Janjaweed on horseback or in pickup trucks who were backed by Sudanese military aircraft.

The attackers killed and raped scores of people in the villages, and then burned shops and houses, stole livestock, and poisoned wells, according to eyewitness accounts.

The villagers, who all fled into the desolate environment, never again saw thousands of their camels, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats, nor virtually any of their personal possessions.

Before the attacks, the average household size in the three villages was 12.1 people; afterward, the average household had shrunk to 6.7 people.

Those interviewed came from households of a combined population of 558 people. Of those, 141 were confirmed killed, and another 110 were dead or missing, the report said.

The Darfur conflict started in early 2003 when a rebel group began attacking government targets, saying the government had long neglected the Darfur region. The government responded by arming ''self-defense militias," but it denies supporting the Janjaweed.

After months of strong international pressure to stop the violence, the government of President Omar al-Bashir promised to disarm the Janjaweed.

But more than a year later, African Union peacekeepers stationed in Darfur have said they have seen almost no disarmament of the Janjaweed.

The United Nations has called for a Compensation Committee to seek ways of redress for the estimated 2 million displaced people living in camps.

The Physicians for Human Rights report recommended that negotiations begin with the Sudanese government to set aside profits from Sudan's profitable oil sector to compensate and rehabilitate victims of the Darfur violence.

The report also called for stabilizing the volatile region, where tensions have recently risen because of violent clashes near the Chad border between Chad troops and rebels that the Chad government said are backed by Sudan.

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.