U.S. and European media

February 10, 2023

Reuters: Militias raid Darfur camp, kill two refugees.  Militias raided a Darfur refugee camp, shooting dead two people and injuring at least 10 in an escalation of tensions in Sudan's restive west, witnesses and U.N. officials said Wednesday.  The raid followed the murder of a militia member's relative who appeared to be searching the camps in Kass, South Darfur for the suspect, U.N. officials in Darfur said.

Associated Press: International Court dismisses case of Darfur rebel.  International war crimes judges dismissed the case against a Sudanese rebel leader Monday, ruling that prosecutors failed to provide enough evidence to put him on trial for the deaths of international peacekeepers.  Bahar Idriss Abu Garda had been accused of planning and participating in an attack on an African Union peace mission in Sudan's Darfur region in 2007 that killed 12 international troops.  Had it gone to trial, the case would have been a milestone in imposing international justice on the brutal Darfur conflict and would have tested international law that attacking noncombatant peace forces is a war crime.

The Faster Times: Hope for Darfur Now. The systematic killings in Darfur began in 2003. Of the 6 million people that had lived in the region, experts estimate that more than 300,000 were murdered in two years by government-backed militias and the Sudanese military, and nearly 3 million are refugees. The United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force now lacks the funds and supplies to properly help the 2.7 million internally displaced Darfuris living in camps. (Another 300,000 are refugees across the border in Chad).  Darfur, despite the attention it has received from grassroots organizations, has apparently not been earth-shaking enough to attract the public's eye.

BBC News: Sudan and Chad to end hostilities.  Sudan says it is ready for a full normalization of relations with neighboring Chad, raising hopes of an end to the conflict in Darfur.  Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir said a visit from Chad's President Idriss Deby had "put an end to all the problems" between the countries.  Mr. Deby urged Chad's rebels, based in Sudan, to lay down their arms.  In the past Sudan and Chad have accused each other of sponsoring each other's rebel movements.  After two days of talks, neither side made firm commitments to expel the rebels using their country as a base to attack their neighbor.

UN News Centre: Joint UN-African Union envoy to Darfur talks peace with armed rebel movements.  The newly appointed head of the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, today met with members from key rebel militia as part of a series of talks on the prospects for a durable peace in the war-scarred region in western Sudan.  The meeting, which took place in the Qatari capital of Doha, was held between UNAMID Joint Special Representative Ibrahim Gambari and negotiators from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army/Armed Revolutionary Front (SLA/ARF).

The Darfur Daily News is a service of the Save Darfur Coalition. To subscribe to the Daily News, please email [email protected]. For media inquiries, please contact Ashley Roberts at (202) 478-6181, or [email protected].