Dafur, Sudan could be the next Rwanda

[moe.ron]

Sudan 'like Rwanda in 1994'

Cairo - Sudan is waging a bloody campaign of "ethnic cleansing", killing thousands of people and driving a million more from their homes by bombing villages, shooting men and raping women, a prominent human rights group said on Friday.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch described a pattern of violence by government forces and militiamen, known as janjaweed, made up of nomads who often sweep into villages riding camels and horses.

Human rights groups said the two forces - the Arab-dominated government and the Arab militia - set out last year on a deliberate campaign to drive black African tribes from the Darfur region.

The rights group called on the UN Security Council, scheduled to meet Friday on the Darfur situation, to step in to help stop the bloodshed and look for evidence of crimes against humanity.

It likened the situation in Darfur to the beginning of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when 500 000 people were slaughtered by a government-backed, extremist militia. The international community has been widely criticised for not intervening to stop the bloodshed.

"Ten years after the Rwandan genocide and despite years of soul-searching, the response of the international community to the events in Sudan has been nothing short of shameful," Human Rights Watch said in its 77-page report.

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