Europe must act: Save Darfur!

With an oversized hour-glass in front of the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin to mark the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Darfur (26th February) the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) drew attention on Monday to the fact that time is running out for the people in West Sudan. The human rights workers called on the German government to speak out in the EU for the imposing of sanctions against theose responsible for the genocide. „Time is running out in Darfur for the people and the aid workers”, said the GfbV Africa expert Ulrich Delius. „In the light of the increasing violence it will soon no longer be possible to provide several million people with food.” The world’s largest aid operation is threatened with collapse.

Observers of the African Union (AU) have on many occasions reported that it is above all the Sudanese government which is responsible for the increasing violence. So Delius called for the EU to proceed now with sanctions such as travel restrictions and the freezing of bank accounts aimed at those responsible in the regime for the genocide.

On 26th February 2003 there were for the first time heavy armed battles in the conflict which had been seething for years in Darfur. 300 fighters from resistance groups from the town of Golu in Darfur attacked and killed Sudanese soldiers. The Sudanese government decided to break the revolt by military means and forced the arming of Arab groups which had already existed since the 1980’s. These groups, which later as Janjaweed mounted militia spread fear and panic with their brutal attacks among the civilian population, recruited bandits, former soldiers and young unemployed men from smaller Arab tribes. These Janjaweed are working to the present day at the command of the Sudanese government, driving out the civilian population, poisoning wells, raping women and destroying hundreds of villages.

Up to 400,000 people have according to the estimates of the GfbV been killed in Darfur since the beginning of the genocide four years ago. 2.7 million have been expelled, three million need humanitarian aid. „If this madness is not stopped soon a whole region will go up in flames”, warned Delius. In recent weeks the war has spread out to the Chad and the Central African Republic.