Darfur: Never again?

The attackers, as they have done so often, rampaged through terrified people, shouting "kill the slaves". They cried: "We have orders to kill all the blacks". Eight more villages in Darfur were torched in a single day by armed men in a concerted operation. No one knows how many were killed, but it is the latest evidence that inaction by the international community has emboldened the Janjaweed Arab militias and their backers in the Islamist government in Khartoum. As arguments rage over who was to blame for the attacks five days ago, the UN is deciding whether the atrocities of the past two years amount to genocide. Human rights organisations are using the occasion of Holocaust Day tomorrow to call for international war trials to help stop the crimes still being committed against the civilians of Darfur. Here are the facts. More than 70,000 people have been killed. More than 1.6 million have been forced from their homes in a conflict that has been described as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis". The continuing violence has been so intense that international aid agencies have been forced to suspend their work after coming under attack. While the diplomats debate how to respond, the survivors of the atrocities are left traumatised, many in refugee camps. More than 60 per cent of refugees from Darfur have witnessed the killing of a family member by the men on horseback. Four out of every five people have witnessed the destruction of their villages. Two-thirds saw government planes laden with bombs target fleeing civilians. One-third heard racial abuse while they and their relatives were being murdered or raped. [more]

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