RENEWED FIGHTING has broken out in Darfur, despite Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir declaring the war in the western region was “finished”.
French aid group Médecins du Monde (MdM) said it has had to suspend its operations in central Darfur’s Jabel Marra, after several days of fighting led to the displacement of 100,000 people.
The news came hours after President al-Bashir told a meeting in El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, that “The combat of arms is over, and the one of development now begins.”
Mr al-Bashir had just returned from Doha in Qatar, where a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and Darfur’s largest rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, was heralded as the beginning of the end to the seven-year conflict.
The NGO said: “Deribat, a city of 50,000 . . . was attacked on Wednesday, causing massive flight of people and bringing to more than 100,000 the number of people displaced in the area.”
MdM did not say who was involved in the fighting, but the absence of rival rebel groups such as the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLA) from the Doha deal means a total end to violence was never certain, said Foaud Hikmat, Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group. “JEM claim they are representative of all Darfurians but Darfur is very polarised, much of it along ethnic lines, as are the rebel groups. The Doha deal is a step in the right direction, but it is very important that JEM widens the process and helps establish institutions that are representative of all Darfurians.”
The SLA, the first group to take up arms against the government in Khartoum in 2003, has slated the peace deal as “ceremonial” and designed to give JEM slots in the government. With its first free election in decades this April and a referendum on independence for the south next year, Sudan is entering an uncertain period, say seasoned watchers.