UN Official Blames Sudan for Violence

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UNITED NATIONS, May 7 -- The United Nations' top human rights official charged Friday that Sudan established, armed and supported Arab militias that allegedly expelled more than a million villagers in Sudan's Darfur province and killed thousands.

Sudanese forces and the Janjaweed militias engaged in "a reign of terror" that "may constitute war crimes and or crimes against humanity," Bertrand G. Ramcharan, the acting U.N. high commissioner for human rights, wrote in a 16-page report on Darfur.

Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Elfatih Erwa, denied that his government armed the militias, insisting that any government killings of civilians were the accidental byproduct of a civil war that flared up in Darfur last year.

"We have not been targeting civilians, but as I have said, there is a war," he said. "A bomb does not differentiate between a civilian or the military. In some modern states, they call it collateral damage."

UN Official Blames Sudan for Violence....

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Also of Interest

• World Food Programme Chief John Morris reports on Humanitarian Crisis in Sudan
  
• UN finds Sudan has carried out massive human rights violations in Darfur, includes link to full report.
  
• HRW: Sudan Government Responsible for Ethnic Cleansing, covering the report from Human Rights Watch.
  

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1. BBC: Big powers wary over Sudan crisis

The UN will take no immediate action in the troubled Darfur region of western Sudan, Security Council members say.

They said they were monitoring the humanitarian crisis, after being warned by a UN team that atrocities had been committed in the area.

More than a million people have been forced to leave their homes in Darfur after attacks on villages by Sudanese government and militia forces.

Khartoum denies abuses are widespread, and says it is fighting an insurgency.

Big powers wary over Sudan crisis....

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2. African Union steps up

AU in bid for Sudan peace