Darfur refugees appeal to UN official for better security

EL-GENEINA, Sudan -- Refugee leaders pleaded yesterday with the visiting UN refugee chief for better security as he toured camps around this increasingly lawless regional capital, where feared janjaweed militiamen roam freely and have infiltrated the police forces.

The fighters, blamed for widespread atrocities in Darfur, rode with police and army units in armed pickup trucks through el-Geneina as United Nations high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres met with local authorities.

Gunshots and clashes from the janjaweed occur almost daily, residents say. "The last killing happened five days ago," said Ibrahim Harun. "A janjaweed killed my neighbor because he wanted his cellphone."

The situation is even worse in neighboring refugee camps, tribal leaders told Guterres.

"They shoot at us day and night," said sheik Ibrahim Ali, a traditional leader of the Massalit tribe, who make up most of the 31,000 refugees from other parts of Darfur crowded into the Krinding camp on the outskirts of el-Geneina.

"Nobody chases or arrests any of the attackers," he told Guterres. "What we need is for the UN to send peacekeepers so that we can go back to our villages."

Another sheik, Mohammed Adam, said attacks were reported to the African Union, which has 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, some of them in a compound next to el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state. "But nothing changes," he told Guterres.

Residents and international workers in the area estimated that over half of government forces here are now infiltrated by militiamen. The Khartoum government denies supporting the janjaweed and calls them bandits they cannot control.

A Sudanese official in el-Geneina acknowledged the problem but said the local government had no control over the militiamen's activities. "The security services don't even inform us when the janjaweed come in town," said the official, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million made refugees in Darfur since 2003, when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-led Sudanese government, accusing it of neglect and discrimination. The government is accused of arming the janjaweed as a counterinsurgency tactic, and the militiamen are blamed for widespread rapes and killings of Darfur civilians.

Guterres was on a two-day visit as the UNHCR prepares to bolster its operations in West Darfur, one of three provinces that make up Darfur.

He urged the refugee leaders to endorse the Darfur Peace Agreement, which was signed last year between the government and one rebel group. But other rebel factions and refugees have rejected the deal, saying it is insufficient.

"A bad peace is better than a good war," Guterres told the refugees.

After five months of stalling, Sudan agreed earlier in April to let 3,000 UN peacekeepers reinforce the AU in Darfur, but most observers say so small a force cannot provide a lasting solution.