[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 85 (Friday, June 18, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1160-E1161]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      DARFUR: THE CRISIS CONTINUES

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                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 17, 2004

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record three 
recent articles regarding the ongoing crisis in Darfur, Sudan. I will 
continue to submit these accounts until the world takes notice. I will 
not let the world say ``we did not know.''

                          [From the BBC News]

                   Sudanese Children Dying of Hunger

     Hundreds of children have started to starve to death in 
         Sudan's war-torn western province of Darfur
       The BBC's Hilary Andersson saw the burial of two-year-old 
     Ikram and says 400 other children in the same camp in Kalma 
     were unable to keep food down.
       Their families have fled attacks by pro-government Arab 
     militias, accused of forcing black Africans off the land.
       Last week, a senior aid worker said 300,000 people would 
     starve in Darfur, even if help is sent immediately.
       Some 10,000 have died in Darfur, since a rebellion broke 
     out last year and one million have fled their homes.
       The rains have already begun to fall, which will soon make 
     Darfur, an area the size of France, virtually impassable, our 
     correspondent says.
     `Too little'
       Speaking after his return from the area, UK Secretary for 
     International Development Hilary Benn said Darfur was 
     undoubtedly the largest humanitarian crisis in the world and 
     more aid agencies were needed there.
       ``We are in a race against time in Darfur,'' he told MPs.
       He admitted that the international response to the crisis 
     had been too little, too late but said the UK was committed 
     to doing all that it could.
       ``I have also been concerned about the adequacy and speed 
     of the UN's response, although this should now change.''
       Our reporter in Darfur says that while Ikram died, another 
     boy on the same mat, Joseph, could not be coaxed to eat.
       His mother could do nothing but watch.
       The mother of nine-month-old Adam says that she walked 
     without food for 10 days to reach the camp. ``The militias 
     burnt our village . . . They were burning the children,'' she 
     said.
       Our correspondent says village after village in Darfur has 
     been burnt, while food is running out in all the camps, where 
     people have sought refuge.
     Air-strikes
       ``If we get relief in, we could lose a third of a million. 
     If we do not, it could be a million,'' Andrew Natsios, head 
     of the U.S. Agency for International Development told a UN 
     donor conference last week.
       The figures were based on mortality and malnutrition rates, 
     he said.
       The government and two rebel groups have signed a ceasefire 
     but the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has accused 
     the army and its militia allies of attacking them near the 
     border with Chad earlier this week.
       Jem official Abu Bakr Hamid al-Nur told Reuters news agency 
     that the government had used an Antonov aircraft and 
     helicopters to bomb the rebel positions.
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                          [From the BBC NEWS]

                       Sudanese Tell of Mass Rape

           (By Alexis Masciarelli and Ilona Eveleens Darfur)

     The pro-government Janjaweed Arab militia has been accused of 
         using systematic rape, as well as killing and destroying 
         the villages of black Africans, in the conflict in 
         Sudan's western Darfur region.
       Behind the closed door of a classroom, in the school 
     compound where she has been living for the last two months, 
     35 year-old rape-victim Khadija, spoke of her ordeal.
       ``The Janjaweed arrived one evening in February in our 
     village near Kaileck, they had guns,'' she says in a quiet 
     voice.
       ``They followed us when we tried to escape. The group of 
     people I was with was forced back to Kaileck. They had 
     surrounded the whole town.''
       ``They separated men and women. Then the Janjaweed selected 
     the prettiest women.''
       ``Four men raped me for 10 days.''
       ``Every day, women were picked up, taken to the bush where 
     they were raped and brought back to Kaileck. The next day it 
     would start again.''
     Hostage population
       Khadija is one of some 40,000 people to have found shelter 
     in the town of Kass, in the south of Darfur.
       In the past 16 months, the conflict opposing the Sudan 
     government and its militia allies to the rebels of the Sudan 
     Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement 
     (JEM), has killed at least 10,000 people and displaced more 
     than one million across the large western Sudanese region.
       ``Rape appears to be a feature of most attacks in Fur, 
     Masalit, and Zaghawa areas of Darfur,'' says the latest Human 
     Rights Watch report on the Darfur conflict.
       ``The extent of the rape is difficult to determine since 
     women are reluctant to talk about it and men, although 
     willing to report it, speak only in generalities.''
       Many witnesses say the population of Kaileck was held 
     hostage by the Janjaweed for two months, despite repeated 
     appeals to the commissioner of Kass.
       Men were also picked up daily and killed.
       The accounts are difficult to verify, but accord with the 
     findings of human rights workers in recent months.
       Kaileck is now an empty desolated town, with every single 
     house and hut burnt or destroyed.
     Ethnic choice
       ``It is very difficult for me as I am a Fur women and these 
     are Arab men'', says Khadija, covering herself with an orange 
     scarf.
       ``These are my only clothes. My sister gave them to me, 
     because the Janjaweed abandoned me naked.''
       ``Now I am three-months pregnant. It will be a child from 
     the Janjaweed. But I won't reject this baby. He will be my 
     baby.''
       ``When he grows up, he will decide whether he wants to be a 
     Fur or an Arab. If he chooses to be an Arab, he could go with 
     them. If he decides to be a Fur, he will be welcome to stay 
     with us.''
       In the same classroom, a much younger woman listens.
       Fifteen-year-old Aziza says she was also raped by the 
     Janjaweed back in February.
       ``When Kaileck was attacked, I fled towards the mountains, 
     but five horsemen caught me and took me far away in a 
     field,'' she says.
       ``All five of them raped me twice. They kept me for 10 
     days. They whipped me.''
       ``I could not say anything because they were armed. All I 
     could do was to cry.''
       ``They tied up my arms and my legs and would only release 
     me when they raped me. They called me Abeid (slave in 
     Arabic).''
       ``Eventually they abandoned me. Someone told my mother 
     where I was and she came to take me back. I could not walk by 
     myself.''
     Pain
       But the ordeal did not stop then.
       ``When I arrived in Kaileck, I learnt that the Janjaweed 
     had killed my father.''
       ``I am still in pain and I can't really control myself. But 
     I have not seen any doctor.''
       In Kass, like many other towns and camps in Darfur, women 
     are still at the risk of being raped when they go out to 
     gather firewood or fetch water.
       Their best protection, they say, does not come from the 
     army or local police force, but by going in large groups 
     which are more able to defend themselves.

[[Page E1161]]

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               [From the Washington Post, Jun. 13, 2004]

             U.N.: Sudan Forces, Militias Execute Civilians

                             (Nima Elbagir)

       Khartoum, June 13--A senior U.N. official said on Sunday 
     she had ``credible information'' that Sudanese forces and 
     government-backed militias had carried out summary executions 
     of civilians in west Sudan.
       Asma Jahangir, the U.N. special rapporteur on executions, 
     also said after visiting conflict-stricken Darfur that 
     members of the militia, which locals accuse of looting and 
     killing villagers, were being integrated into the armed 
     forces.
       Independent rights groups have already accused the 
     government and militia, known as janjaweed, of carrying out 
     mass executions in the region where rebels launched an armed 
     uprising in February 2003.
       Fighting in the remote area has affected two million people 
     and driven 158,000 people across the border into Chad, 
     creating what the United Nations has said is one of the 
     world's worst humanitarian crises.
       ``I received numerous accounts of the extrajudicial and 
     summary executions carried out by government-backed militias 
     and by the security forces themselves,'' Jahangir told 
     reporters.
       ``According to credible information, members of the armed 
     forces, the Popular Defense Forces and various groups of 
     government-sponsored militias attacked villagers and 
     summarily executed civilians,'' she said in Khartoum.
       Rights groups have accused the government of arming the 
     Arab janjaweed to drive out African villagers from their 
     homes, in what U.N. officials have said is a campaign of 
     ethnic cleansing. The government calls the janjaweed outlaws 
     and denies any link.
       ``According to the information I collected, many of the 
     militias are being integrated into the regular armed or the 
     Popular Defence Forces. There is no ambiguity that there is a 
     link between some of the militias and government forces,'' 
     Jahangir said.
       But she said some criminal elements had taken advantage of 
     the conflict.
       Jahangir also travelled around other areas of Sudan, 
     including Malakal in the south. The Sudanese government is 
     close to reaching a final peace deal with southern rebels to 
     end a separate 21-year-old conflict in that region.
       ``In my report, I will forcefully stress the question of 
     accountability as a fundamental principle in addressing 
     violations of human rights . . . The government of the Sudan 
     must make every effort to end the culture of impunity,'' she 
     said.

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