Report: Children In Darfur Tortured, Raped

Sudan In Spotlight At U.N. As Security Council Discusses Peacekeepers, Related Issues

(AP)  Children in Darfur, according to a new report, are enduring "unspeakable acts of violence and abuse" from killing and rape to abduction, torture and recruitment as fighters in the escalating four-year conflict in Sudan's vast western region.

The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict report released Wednesday accused the Sudanese government of "apparent deliberate efforts ... to suppress information and prevent agencies from collecting and disseminating details on attacks against children and their protection needs, particularly in Darfur" and eastern Sudan.

The group's findings were made public a day before the issue was to move into the spotlight at the United Nations.

"With the Security Council set to take up the issue of Darfur in consultations on Friday," says CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk "the government of Sudan is on the spot to allow U.N. peacekeepers as they said they would. But there are significant hurdles still to overcome before the victims of attacks are protected."

The report said humanitarian agencies have documented cases of armed groups shooting, mutilating and torturing children, abducting and gang-raping girls, and recruiting and using youngsters as combatants.

While the Sudanese armed forces continue to deny the presence of children in their units, the Watchlist said representatives acknowledge that children from other armed groups have recently been incorporated into the government's military forces.

Reports indicate that most armed groups in Sudan, including government-backed Arab militias known as the janjaweed and the two largest rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army, "recruit and use children."

In addition to killings and maimings by armed groups, it said, "Sudanese girls have been trafficked within and out of Sudan to serve as commercial sexual workers, while others have been trafficked to work as domestic servants."

Kathleen Hunt, who chairs The Watchlist steering committee, said the report documents "dozens of continued and pervasive violations against children by all armed forces and groups operating in Sudan and urges that immediate action be taken to protect Sudanese children."

The report, entitled Sudan's Children at a Crossroads, "confirms that children in Sudan continue to endure some of the most inhumane treatment found anywhere in the world," Hunt said.

Despite the January 2005 peace agreement that ended a 21-year civil war between Sudan's mostly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, and recent signs of a possible strengthening of the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, "Sudanese children are not faring any better than they were four years ago," Hunt said.

That's when the Watchlist published its first comprehensive report on Sudan and when ethnically African rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab dominated central government. Since then, more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million made refugees.

While children in the south are enjoying increased protection and access to services, those in Darfur and other areas of Sudan are enduring unspeakable acts of violence and abuse," the report said.

But the report said "southern Sudan continues to have the lowest school enrollment rates in the world at an estimated 25 percent for children." Darfur's few schools and education facilities face widespread shortages of teachers and textbooks, and "schools, students and teachers in Darfur have been attacked by various groups," it said.

The Watchlist steering committee includes Care International, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Norwegian Refugee Council, International Save the Children Alliance, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and World Vision Canada.

[JanjawidLivingZombies]

Bluestardad, maybe some day your kids'll get raped and tortured, and when you ask for help we'll just say it's none of our business c:.

But sir, it is very much our business. After all, it's happening on our planet, and someday the consequences will very much affect our lives. Did the holocaust not affect your life? It's the same thing only with darfur, we actually have a chance to stop this. What would have happened if we said that the holocaust was "none of our business"?

It breaks my heart that there are so many close minded people in the world that think that this is "none of their business".

[pwrslm]

Sudan is a mess. Dafur is just another of a string of genocidal actions by muslims against non-muslims there. Both the Demoncraps and the repugnican parties are ignorant about what should be done.

While we play tarzan in Afghanistan, and superman in Iraq, tens of thousands of innocents are slaughtered through a systematic routine by military forces paid with the valuables they can steal from non-muslims.

They rape the young females so they will not go to heaven. This is a standard of islam dating back 1400 + years.

Before Dafur, it was the persecution of the Christians, half a million killed in the 80s/90s. Now, every other religion is under the gun.

Fk the UN. They have watched this evolve for 30 years, and have taken absolutely no viable steps to end it. The coalition of 54 Islamic States banding together under the umbrella of the UN allows this to go on, unspoken of, in the very institution that has the responsibility to stop it.

[savedarfurlv]

What the people of Darfur have gone through is awful. In an effort to show support for UN Peacekeepers, there is going to be a Candlelight Vigil in downtown Las Vegas, NV on Thurs. April 26, 2007. Please attend and spread the word about the event. For more information go to www.savedarfur.com/globaldays.

[bluestardad]

TOUGH THIS IS NOT AMERICAS BUSINESS! UNLESS ISRAEL OR SAUDI ARABIA WANTS US TO GO THERE WHY DONT YOU CHECK WITH WILLIAM KRISTOL OF AIPAC OR PNAC OR THE WEEKLY STANDARD AND SEE IF THE SELL OUT AMERICA CROWD WANTS A WAR IN AFRICA!

[theusa1st]

http://www.workers.org/2006/world/
darfur-0608/
Posted by coffeehead at 06:37 AM : Apr 20, 2007

This is just another Marxist / Socialist site.
This is not the United states fault you communist pig. Read the article where is says most of the problems are caused by the north - caused by muslims.

"That's when the Watchlist published its first comprehensive report on Sudan and when ethnically African rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab dominated central government."

Marxism doesn't work and it won't work here in the U.S.A. because "WE THE PEOPLE" will not stand for it !!!! A long line of mass murderers believed in Marxism and Communism and committed many atrocities...you and your ilk are pond scum and should be treated as such.

[coffeehead-2009]

The mantra continues -
New world order - episode 5, american imperialsim.


U.S. policy revolves around shutting down the export of oil through sanctions and inflaming national and regional antagonisms. For over two decades U.S. imperialism supported a separatist movement in the south of Sudan, where oil was originally found.

Newly discovered resources have made Sudan of great interest to U.S. corporations. Sudan might have oil reserves as large or larger than those of Saudi Arabia, currently considered to have the world%u2019s largest reserve. It has large deposits of natural gas. In addition, it has one of the three largest deposits of high-purity uranium in the world, along with the fourth-largest deposits of copper.

U.S. imperialism is heavily involved in the entire region. Defense Depart ment, was the largest in Africa since World War II. Chad is a former French colony, and both French and U.S. forces are heavily involved in funding, training and equipping the army of its military ruler, Idriss Deby, who has supported rebel groups in Darfur.

U.S. imperialism, which has replaced the European colonial powers in many parts of the world, Its main economic weapons have been sanctions combined with %u201Cstructural adjustment%u201D demands made by the International Monetary Fund, which it controls. In return for loans, the target governments must cut their budgets for development of infrastructure.


http://www.workers.org/2006/world/darfur-0608/

[gunownerdan]

Mass murder is easy when you have large numbers of defenseless civilians. Just ask some of the greatest killers in world history........

"One man with a gun can control 100 without one. Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms."
- Lenin

"Ideas are more dangerous than guns. We wouldn%u2019t let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?"
- Joseph Stalin

"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves."
- Joseph Stalin

"Political power comes from the barrel of a gun."
- Mao

"The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. ... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results."
- Benito Mussolini

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to
possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry
arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing."
- Adolf Hitler

SELF DEFENSE
a-human-right.com

[duffyn]

It is sad but true - this VA Tech incident would be just a small footnote in a day in Iraq.

My heart goes out the victims and their familes and we lost some truly wonderful people in the VA Tech incident.

Of course we are more concerned with people in our country and our own safety. But it is worth noting the suffering of people in other countries. War seems to warp our moral values. This VA Tech guy would fit right in with the insurgents and we don't necessarily see them as insane. Cruel and heartless, evil for sure. But, what are we when we drop bombs? Do we really have the moral high ground? In Iraq, it really makes me wonder.

[jbinthe757]

Its amazing how much news coverage goes to VA Tech, yet over 180 innocent people were killed the same day in Baghdad and countless others in Africa. Get your priorities straight people. Why is the live in USA more important than anywhere else, because they were not so called "Christians"? White washed tombs people!

[me4prezz]

OMG.