Darfur genocide 'as bad as ever'

While the Sudanese regime insists everything is almost hunky dory in Darfur (where it's sponsoring and/or committing genocide), objective observers disagree.

The UN's humantarian chief Jan Egeland called the crisis 'as bad as ever.'

Even the International Committee of the Red Cross said that aid workers could not operate in large parts of Darfur because of ongoing fighting.

Curiously, the regime denied visas to a UN military assessment team hoping to analyze the situation on the ground ahead of a potential international peacekeeping mission in the region. Perhaps because they don't want any witnesses?

Of course, this is not new. Earlier this month, Egeland himself was denied entry into Darfur by the dictatorship for spurious reasons.

Yesterday, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on four Sudanese suspected of war crimes in the region. Two rebel leaders, a former air force chief and a pro-regime militia leader were subjected to a travel ban and foreign assets freeze.

A journalist corroborated Egeland's assessment.

In Darfur itself, a BBC correspondent has found evidence of continuing attacks on civilians by militias.

[...]

The BBC's Orla Guerin in Darfur met streams of civilians who said they were fleeing their remote village of Jogana.
They said they had been attacked by government aircraft and militiamen that were fighting rebel forces in the area.

[The] correspondent said she could hear the sound of bombing from 40km (25 miles) away.

That aircraft have been involved in so much of the violence gives lie to the government's claims that it's merely random chaos caused by militiamen on horseback.

African Union (AU) peacekeepers met the civilians and gave them water but did not intervene in the fighting.

No wonder the regime is resisting a stronger UN force that might interfere with their genocidal killing spree.