Waste paper. This is what the Abuja peace agreements, signed two months ago, and the ceasefire that has held in Darfur for the last 27 months, have turned out to be. According to the humanitarian workers, the situation in the refugee camps on the border with Chad has never been worse. Now the rebels have decided to take action, denouncing the ceasefire and occupying the centre of Hamrat al-Sheikh, about 200 km from the capital Khartoum. The war has resumed, harder than ever.

 

New attacks. Enough with the fiction: the ceasefire in Darfur, signed in April 2004, has never been respected. Janjaweed militia and rebels have continued to clash and to oppress the civilian population, accusing each other and shifting the blame for the massacres onto each other. Now, the Justice and Equality Movement has broken cover, denouncing the fake ceasefire, with the attack on Hamrat al-Sheikh. So far, 12 deaths have been confirmed, and thousands of civilians are fleeing. The Sudanese army has sent its air force to reclaim the city, which is under heavy attack from the rebels, who entered with approximately 50 heavy vehicles. It is one of the rare times that the JEM, allied with the faction of the Sudan Liberation Army led by Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur, has attacked outside Darfur.

 

Peace process. Neither is there good news from the negotiating table. The Abuja peace agreement was accepted only by the Sudanese government and by the faction of the SLA led by Minni Minnawi. The majority of the SLA, however, has decided to continue fighting, claiming more rights for the local peoples, more jobs in the army for the rebels and greater investment in Darfur. According to the announcement released a few days ago by Jan Pronk, head of the UNMIS (the UN mission in Sudan), the peace treaty has no chance whatsoever of being accepted by the rebels. This point of view, which Pronk had the distinction of revealing, is shared by a large part of the international community. The Sudanese government, however, has let it be known that the treaty can only be amended, and that its principal points will remain as they are. The stalemate risks becoming irremediable.

 

Violence and oppression. By a twist of fate, the armed attacks against the civilian populations have intensified precisely as a consequence of the signing of the agreements. The two SLA factions have started to clash, increasing the level of insecurity, especially in the refugee camps, according to the statements of the NGOs operating in the zone. “Attacks against us have increased significantly”, a humanitarian operator working in Nyala, in the south of Darfur, related to PeaceReporter. “The rebels, from both sides, come to hunt down presumed collaborationists in the refugee camps, killing, raping and stealing. We are powerless, and the population doesn’t know where to turn”.

Blind alley. The 7,000 peacekeepers of the African Union stationed in Darfur are not much help, given that most of the attacks against the refugees are launched during the night, when the AU patrols stop. The refugees, who until October used to find shelter in nearby Chad, are now caught in the crossfire, because across the border the Chad army is clashing with the rebels, aiming to overthrow the president, Idriss Deby. The UN has offered more than once to take control of the mission, but Sudan is opposed to the arrival of the blue berets. President Omar al-Bashir does not want any interference from the United Nations, and continues to maintain that Darfur is an exclusively internal problem. The labyrinth of Darfur risks finishing in a blind alley with no way out.

 

Matteo Fagotto