Sudan arrests 36 displaced following Darfur forced relocation - Amnesty

Friday 2 November 2007.

November 1, 2007 (LONDON) — Sudan Security forces detained 36 people from Otash Camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in South Darfur on the evening of 29 October. In a press statement issued today, Amnesty International said they are in danger of being tortured in detention.

Displaced Sudanese women walk from Kalma camp near Nyala, in South Darfur in Sudan, September 29, 2004. (Reuters)

Following fighting between different ethnic groups in Kalma camp, on 18 October a large number of IDPs fled Kalma Camp, which is near Nyala. Most of those that fled the fighting went to Otash Camp, which is24km from Kalma Camp.

During the afternoon of 29 October police and soldiers went into Otash Camp to remove the recent arrivals and forcibly relocate them to a village named Amakisara, 23km from Nyala.

Members of the African Mission in Sudan (AMIS), including military personnel, observers and AMIS police, went to the camp, but were ordered to leave by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) colonel conducting the operation.

They saw the camp residents fleeing while tents were destroyed and property was carried away in trucks. According to the UN, IDPs were being threatened by soldiers and police wielding sticks and rubber hoses.

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement spokesperson, Ahmed Hussein Adam, who condemned the forced relocation, said Sudanese authorities have taken the children of these displaced and demanded the parents to follow them to Amakisara .

While the leader of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, Abdelwahid al-Nur, condemned this “heinous and abject crime” committed against Darfur innocent people. He urged the UN Security Council to sanction Sudan this forced relocation which is clear violation of the international law.

According to UN figures 2.2 million people in Darfur are now gathered in IDP camps. They were driven out of their homes when, in response to attacks by rebel groups, the government armed and supported local militias, known as the Janjawid, as a proxy force.

The government and the Janjawid attempted to suppress the insurgency by deliberately targeting civilians of the same ethnicity as the rebel groups. About 95,000 people have been killed, and more than 200,000 have died over the past four years as a result of conflict-related hunger or disease.

Vast areas of Darfur have been emptied of farmers, and hundreds of villages have been razed to the ground. The UN has issued a statement expressing alarm at the violence against IDPs and the attempted forcible relocations in Otash Camp.

IDPs feel safer in the camps and have consistently resisted government pressure to move out of them into areas which are still dominated by armed members of the Janjawid militias who killed and displaced them. Forcible relocation is prohibited by international standards.

(ST)