Death Toll at South Darfur Refugee Camp May Reach 64, UN Says

Death Toll at South Darfur Refugee Camp May Reach 64, UN Says

By Karl Maier

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- As many as 64 people were killed and 117 wounded in a raid by Sudanese police and military two days ago on a refugee camp in the western region of Darfur, the United Nations said.

Investigators from the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force, known as Unamid, evacuated 49 injured people from the camp to a hospital in the nearby city of Nyala, Unamid said in a statement on its Web site. The UN team saw 11 bodies.

The government of Sudan, or GOS, confirmed the attack, saying police were responding to fire from the Kalma camp housing more than 80,000 people that wounded five officers, the state news agency Suna reported on Aug. 25, citing the South Darfur state's security committee.

``Unamid strongly condemns the excessive, disproportionate use of lethal force by the GOS security forces against civilians, which violated their human rights and resulted in unacceptable casualties,'' Unamid said.

A separate, confidential UN report said UN personnel saw 31 bodies, including seven children between 11 and 16 years of age, 11 women and 13 men. All died from bullet wounds except for one woman who fell down a well while fleeing, it said.

The Kalma camp is one of the largest in Darfur, a region where more than 2 million people have fled their homes during a five-year-old civil war. The conflict, which has claimed as many as 300,000 lives, started in February 2003 when insurgents demanding a greater share of Sudan's political power and wealth attacked government forces.

Entry Resisted

The clashes at Kalma camp occurred at 7:30 a.m. local time on Aug. 25 when government security officials arrived in 60 vehicles and refugees resisted their attempts to enter the camp, Unamid said.

``The situation escalated into confrontation and exchange of gunfire, with no indication as to who started it,'' Unamid said. ``Humanitarian staff who left the camp reported the shooting lasted for about two hours.''

Government soldiers and police were heavily armed, while the refugees carried sticks, knives and spears, Unamid said.

``GOS Security forces alleged that they were met by a human shield of women and children, from behind which gunfire aimed at them erupted, thus prompting them to return fire,'' it said.

Unamid, which the UN Security Council approved in July last year, has deployed less than half of the 26,000 soldiers and police due to arrive in Darfur.

More than 30 rights groups said in July that the international community has let down the peacekeepers by failing to equip them to help end the conflict.

To contact the reporter on this story: Karl Maier in Rome at [email protected].