WUNRN
Link to Full Text - UN News Centre:
9 July 2008 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly
condemned a deadly attack on the joint United Nations-African Union force in
Darfur that killed seven peacekeepers and wounded twenty-two, seven of them
critically.
The attack on the peacekeeping mission, known as UNAMID, occurred yesterday at approximately 2:45 pm local time, when a joint police and military patrol was ambushed by unidentified militia between Gusa Jamat and Wadah in North Darfur.
The attackers used heavy weapons and engaged the UNAMID convoy in an exchange of fire for more than two hours.
“The Secretary-General condemns in the strongest possible terms this unacceptable act of extreme violence against AU-UN peacekeepers in Darfur and calls on the Government of Sudan to do its utmost to ensure that the perpetrators are swiftly identified and brought to justice,” his spokesperson said in a statement.
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http://edition.cnn.com:80/2008/WORLD/africa/06/19/darfur.rape/
Nic Robertson
CNN Senior International Correspondent
RAPE
IS A WAY OF LIFE FOR DARFUR'S WOMEN - SUDAN
ZAM ZAM DISPLACEMENT CAMP, Sudan (CNN) -- Sudan's Darfur crisis has exploded on many fronts -- violence, hunger, displacement and looting -- but United Nations peacekeepers say the biggest issue now affecting the region is the systematic rape of women and children.
UNAMID
police officer Ajayi Funmi, left, educates Darfur women about rape.
Thousands of
women as young as 4 caught in the middle of the struggle between rebel forces
and government-backed militias have become victims of rape, they say, with some
aid groups claiming that it is being used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing.
"That
is one of the biggest issues in Darfur: the rapes, and crimes against women and
children," said Micheal Fryer, police commissioner of UNAMID, the United
Nations peacekeeping force deployed to try to tackle the violence.
Relief
workers say they are powerless to stop the attacks and say that if they do
speak out, they fear that the Sudanese government will tell them to leave
the country.
Humanitarian
group Refugees International said in a report last year that rape was "an
integral part of the pattern of violence that the government of Sudan is
inflicting upon the targeted ethnic groups in Darfur."
Some relief
workers say that almost every woman living in aid camps has been raped or
become a victim of gender-based violence. Many teenagers, while out running
errands such as collecting firewood, are raped multiple times by militiamen,
the workers say.
They say the
situation has now become so bad that many women are now resigned to rape as a
way of life and men are unwilling to accompany them because they fear that they
will be killed if they try to defend them.
But despite
the extent of the abuse, the Sudanese government insists there is no problem,
adding to the difficulties faced by the victims, who are often ostracized by
their communities or fall afoul of a legal system seen as favoring their
attackers. "There is no rape in Darfur," said Mohammad Hassan Awad, a
Humanitarian Aid Commissioner for West Darfur, who accuses foreign aid workers
of persuading people in refugee camps to make false claims.
Although few
aid workers dispute the extent of the attacks against women, they say survivors
are unwilling to come forward. But those who do reveal shocking levels of
abuse.
"She
said they removed their scarves and used it to tie them up and were taking
turns to rape them. One is 13 years old; the other one is 16 years," Ajayi
Funmi of the UNAMID police, who is trying to educate women, said after talking
to two girls.
Making
matters worse, aid workers say scores of babies conceived through rape are
being dumped by their mothers.
"Abandoned
babies are reported, but because of the stigma attached to it, there is no
detailed report, because the women don't come forward," said Dr Naqib Safi
of the U.N. children's body UNICEF.
As many as
20 babies a month are being dumped in one camp of 22,000 people.
With
U.N. officials calling for more female officers to better educate women against
rape and women saying they won't feel safe until the under-equipped and
undermanned United Nations force is strong enough to protect them, the
situation shows little sign of improving.