Sudan blamed for 50 civilian deaths in Darfur

The United Nations said today that hundreds of men identified by residents as Janjaweed militia forces killed about 50 civilians in an attack last week on West Darfur villages and a camp for displaced people.

“At the very least, the attacks demonstrated the government of Sudan’s continued failure to disarm militia in Darfur, and at worst its use of militia forces that target civilian populations,” said a UN human rights report released in Geneva.

Earlier today Sudanese president Omar el-Bashir said his government would not relent on its rejection of United Nations peacekeeping troops for Darfur.

El-Bashir, in Beijing for a China-Africa summit, said that accepting the UN troops, which the world body wants to use to stop a war that has left 200,000 dead, would be worse than keeping them out.

“We refuse to accept the entry of UN peacekeepers into Sudan because the impact of our refusal is better than the impact of our acceptance,” he said in Arabic.

El-Bashir’s government has been accused of unleashing the brutal Janjaweed militiamen to quell an uprising against the government. In addition to the dead, more than 2.5 million people have been displaced in the conflict.

El-Bashir denied that his government was behind the Janjaweed, and said that only 10,000 had died in the three-year conflict.