23/2/2007
Darfur: Daily Reports of Violence

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released its latest grim overview of the situation in Darfur, produced in collaboration with other UN agencies and partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs), showing the violence forced around 46,000 people to flee their homes last month.

“New population displacements were registered weekly in January as attacks on villages, sexual violence and intimidation continued to force large numbers of people to move throughout Darfur. Generalized violence, attacks on humanitarian assets and bureaucratic impediments continued to affect humanitarian operations,” the overview states.

New displacements of villagers towards internally displaced person (IDP) camps continued “relentlessly” through the month as a result of attacks by both the Government of Sudan and associated militia and a wing of the Sudan Liberation Army headed by Minni Minawi, according to OCHA.

This was especially the case in north Darfur where there were reports of Sudanese Government “aerial bombings in many locations - and attacks and intimidation by Arab militias.”

OCHA’s overview said that while there were some positive humanitarian developments in terms of access to areas that had been cut off for months, overall access for emergency supplies “continues to be compromised.” The latest January humanitarian access map shows Darfur-wide access is about 64 per cent.

Backing up this grim assessment, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said a 15-year old girl was raped last week in south Darfur, while Arab tribal fighting has erupted again in the same region. These are the latest in daily reports of violence coming out of the region, where at least 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million others displaced from their homes since 2003. In total, some 4 million civilians need assistance to survive.