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Women in Darfur camps still prey to rape |
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The Middle East Times -- June 27, 2005
Women in Darfur camps still prey to rape
KHARTOUM -- Women in displaced persons' camps in Darfur remain
prey to rape, a UN security report said on Saturday, adding that two
Sudanese aid agency staff had been kidnapped by ethnic minority rebels.
Five women from the Kalma camp outside the South Darfur state capital
of Nyala were abducted and raped when they left the camp to collect
firewood on June 21, the report said, without giving further details.
Human rights watchdogs charge that rape has been so widespread in the
scorched earth campaign unleashed by the government and its Arab
militia allies against the rebels that it is deliberately being used as
a weapon of war.
The UN report did not specify which aid agency the two kidnapped
Sudanese worked for but said that it suspected the larger of the two
rebel movements - the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - of being behind
their abduction.
The two were seized near Tawilla town in North Darfur state "presumably by the SLA", it said.
"The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
has received assurances from the SLA that the two international
nongovernmental organization staff members will be released soon."
The UN report said that government police lodged a complaint with
African Union truce monitors saying that the SLA attacked a police
station in Bisaro village in North Darfur, killing one person and
wounding two.
It said that the SLA also killed five fighters of the rival Justice and
Equality Movement and wounded 11 in an attack on Iriba village, in West
Darfur, on June 22.
A convoy of seven UN-hired commercial trucks ferrying food supplies
from Fasher to Kutum in North Darfur was seized by armed men near
Lumbati village and looted, the report said, adding that the drivers
were released unharmed.
Peace talks in Nigeria between the government and the rebels remained bogged down on Saturday two weeks after they opened.
Between 180,000 and 300,000 people have died in Darfur, the vast
majority of them civilians. At least 2.4 million more have fled their
homes since the rebels launched their uprising in February 2003.
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