Khartoum to blame for "most" civilian casualties in fighting: US

Khartoum to blame for "most" civilian casualties in fighting: US



KHARTOUM, Feb 9 (AFP) - The Sudanese army and its allied militias were responsible for "most" of the suffering inflicted on civilians during fighting last month with southern rebels, a US diplomat here said Sunday.

"What has happened is horrific and sad, the government of Sudan bears responsibility for most of this," US charge d'affaires to Sudan, Jeff Millington, told reporters here.

He was talking at a joint press conference in the US embassy with the US head of an international military team tasked with monitoring the protection of civilians caught in the nearly 20-year-old civil war.

The leader of the monitoring group, retired US army General Herbert Lloyd, showed the picture of small girl shot in the abdomen on January 21 in the Western Upper Nile region.

"The attack against civilians and their property has been carried out by militias and government-backed militias," Lloyd said.

He added that thousands of civilians have been forcibly displaced in the Western Upper Nile region by combat between late December 2002 and late January of this year.

Millington and Lloyd urged the government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) to respect a ceasefire accord signed last October during talks in Kenya, that also provides for the protection of civilians.

The monitoring team, which includes 20 members from the United States, Canada and Europe, said in a recent report that they received assurances from the Sudanese government that it had ordered its troops and militias to respect the ceasefire.

The team deployed in Sudan in July 2002 to help implement a civilian protection agreement reached in March 2002, proposed and mediated by the US envoy to Sudan, former Senator John Danforth.

The SPLA accused government forces of launching a "large-scale" assault in the oil-rich Western Upper Nile region on January 1. It charged that army helicopters bombed civilian areas and burned villages, while soldiers confiscated property and livestock.

The Sudanese civil war, pitting the ruling Muslim north against the Christian and animist south, is estimated to have claimed one and a half million lives and displaced four million people.