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Sudan bombs Darfur rebels
Khartoum (AFP) Jan 14, 2009 Sudanese warplanes bombed Darfur rebels hunkered down in the war-torn region as President Omar al-Beshir on Wednesday compared the six-year conflict to wars in Iraq, Gaza and Afghanistan. Antonov bombers struck the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) near Muhajaria, a village in southern Darfur that is a stronghold of a rival group that signed a peace deal with Beshir's government, said the army and rebels. "We bombed a group of rebels, who have no (peace) agreement with us in order to protect the lives of civilians. This is the army's job, to secure the lives of civilians," army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled told AFP. Ali Wafi, a field commander from JEM, which last May marked history by becoming the first regional Sudanese rebel group to attack the capital, said the movement was trying to assess the casualties. "The army bombed our troops near Muhajaria from Antonovs. So far we don't have a clear number of people who were killed or wounded," he told AFP by satellite phone, saying that he was speaking from Darfur. Officials from the UN-led peacekeeping mission in Darfur confirmed a bombing one kilometre (less than a mile) southeast of Muhajariya on Tuesday and another against a village elsewhere in the south that wounded two people on Saturday. Sudan's head of state, who is accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, delivered a defiant speech comparing the increasingly complicated conflict in Darfur with wars across the Muslim world. "There is one battle -- in Darfur, in Iraq, in Gaza, in Somalia, in Afghanistan -- against the Jews and we are fighting one enemy," he told a village celebration about 45 kilometres (28 miles) north of Khartoum. Fresh from a visit to Damascus, Beshir expressed full support for the leaders of Islamist movement Hamas, locked in devastating conflict with Israel in the Gaza Strip, where 1,001 Palestinians have been killed in 19 days. He reiterated that Sudan would not accept any decision from the International Criminal Court, whose judges in The Hague could decide as early as this month whether to issue an arrest warrant against him. "We will not agree with any decision from the ICC, the United Nations, the UN Security Council or any international organisation," Beshir said. African and Arab ministers are holding talks in Qatar in a bid to halt possible legal proceedings against Beshir, accused by the ICC chief prosecutor last July on 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. UN officials estimate that up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes since February 2003, when JEM and another Darfur rebel group rose up against the government, demanding resources and power. Sudan, whose government has been heavily criticised in the West for brutally trying to suppress the uprising, and unleashing Arab proxy militias, insists the death toll stands at 10,000 and dismisses other statistics as a conspiracy. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Liberia's psychiatric wasteland for ex-child soldiers
Paynesville, Liberia (AFP) Jan 14, 2009Like zombies from a nightmare, about 50 teenage boys and girls amble hollow-eyed on the lawn of Liberia's sole psychiatric hospital, drug-laced casualties of a civil war fought using children. |
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