Civilians at Risk as
Sudan, Chad Back Irregular Forces
(New York, June 22, 2006)
– The governments of Chad and Sudan
support armed groups that are committing
serious crimes against civilians in
eastern Chad, Human Rights Watch said in
a
briefing paper
released today.
The 28-page briefing
paper, “Violence
Beyond Borders: The Human Rights Crisis
in Eastern Chad,”
documents a drastic deterioration in the
human rights situation on the Chad side
of the Chad-Sudan border, where Sudanese
government-backed “Janjaweed” militias
raid at will, and Darfur rebels opposed
to Khartoum forcibly recruit Sudanese
refugees, including children, to serve
as rebel fighters. Hundreds of Chadian
civilians have been killed in recent
weeks in attacks by Sudanese militias
and allied Chadian fighters, and more
than 50,000 have been displaced.
“Civilians in eastern Chad are trapped
between the carnage in Darfur and Chad’s
downward spiral into chaos,” said Peter
Takirambudde, director of the Africa
division at Human Rights Watch.
“Khartoum and N’djamena must immediately
end their support for the armed groups
wreaking havoc for civilians on both
sides of the border.”
The Chadian government’s support for
operations by Darfur rebels, including
the recruitment of refugees in camps,
appears to be linked to the government’s
attempts to defeat rebel efforts to oust
President Idriss Déby. The Chadian
rebels, apparently with Sudanese
government support, have used Darfur as
a launching pad for attacks on Chadian
towns since late 2005. In the most
serious attack on April 13, Chadian
rebel forces besieged N’djamena, Chad’s
capital, but were repelled by the
Chadian military, who were helped by
Darfur rebels.
The Sudanese government recruited and
armed the “Janjaweed” militias several
years ago as part of its
counter-insurgency strategy in Darfur.
Khartoum has yet to disarm these
militias and prosecute them for war
crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in Darfur, despite a
commitment to do so under United Nations
Security Council resolutions.
Sudanese militias are ranging deeper
into Chad than ever before, looting and
attacking villages on an apparent ethnic
basis. A June 3 raid struck 75
kilometers inside the border, close to a
refugee camp hosting 20,000 Sudanese in
the Goz Beida region. In a particularly
brutal incident earlier reported by
Human Rights Watch, 118 civilians were
killed on April 12-13 in Djawara,
eastern Chad, simultaneous with the
unsuccessful coup attempt in N’Djamena
by Chadian rebels.
In a new and worrying development,
Sudanese militias have formed alliances
with Chadian ethnic groups, prompting
fighters from Arab, Mimi, Ouaddai and
Tama tribes from Chad to join Sudanese
armed groups in raids that have been
linked to the attempts by Chadian rebels
to oust Déby.
“The Janjaweed attacks are not only
killing and displacing Chadian
villagers; they’re worsening latent
ethnic tensions in Chad,” said
Takirambudde. “If the raids aren’t
stopped, there’s a real danger that
communal violence could explode in
eastern Chad.”
In March, a faction of the Sudanese
Liberation Army (SLA), a Darfur-based
rebel group, forcibly recruited several
thousand Sudanese refugees from camps in
eastern Chad to serve as rebel fighters.
Some recruits who tried to escape from
the rebels were tortured. More than
200,000 Sudanese refugees live along the
Chad-Sudan border in 12 refugee camps
that are supervised by the United
Nations.
This Darfur rebel faction, led by
Commander Khamis Abdallah Abaker,
operates freely on the Chad side of the
border with the apparent acquiescence of
the Chadian government. Khamis
Abdallah’s rebel group recruited several
thousand refugees from the camps,
including hundreds of boys, and held
many of them under brutal conditions. At
least one person was tortured and beaten
so badly that he later died.
“The Chadian government is supposed to
protect Sudanese refugees, not let
rebels abuse them,” said Takirambudde.
“The authorities must keep civilians
safe from further attack, whether
they’re living in the refugee camps or
the countryside.”
Human Rights Watch said that the
developments in Chad’s border zone
demonstrate yet again the urgent need
for a stronger, mobile international
civilian protection force to be deployed
both within Darfur and along the border
with Chad.
To view the photographs
by Luc Delahaye of the Human Rights
Watch mission to Djawara, Chad, please
visit:
http://hrw.org/photos/2006/chad0606_delahaye/index.htm
For information about the photographs
please contact Ella Moran at
morane@hrw.org
