Relations between joint African Union/UN mission in Darfur and government deteriorate over attempts to investigate rape claims

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Sudan has asked the UN to close its human rights office in Khartoum after accusing its peacekeepers of abuses, its joint mission with the African Union in Darfur (Unamid) has announced.

Ties between Unamid and the government have deteriorated over the mission’s attempts to investigate reports that government troops raped 200 women and girls in the Darfur village of Tabit last month.

Unamid said it had received a formal request from the Sudanese government on 23 November to close the mission’s human rights office in the capital.

The mission has always had a liaison office that includes a human rights section, its press department said, adding that it was working to clarify the situation with the government.

Sudan’s foreign ministry confirmed it had asked the office to close, saying its had not kept to its mandate.

.Spokesman Yousif al-Kordofani said the ministry and Unamid had exchanged letters about the issue before the Tabit affair.

The ministry also hit out at Unamid on Tuesday, accusing its peacekeepers of “worrying abuses and violations”, including rape, in Darfur.

“We observed incidents in which Unamid soldiers raped women and the mission took no measures to hold them accountable and did not make them leave the country” Abdullah al-Azraq, the under-secretary for the foreign minister, said in a statement carried by the state news agency Suna.

He did not elaborate further and the Unamid made no immediate comment.

The mission was set up in 2007 to protect civilians and secure aid for Darfur, which has been wracked by conflict since 2003 when insurgents rebelled against the government.

Relations between the mission and Khartoum have soured over Unamid’s attempts to investigate a report from a local news website that soldiers had raped 200 women and girls in Tabit on 31 October.

When Unamid visited Tabit it found no evidence of the rapes, but an internal report said Sudanese soldiers had intimidated villagers to quash the allegations as the peacekeepers investigated.

Khartoum summoned Unamid’s acting head and said last week it had asked the mission to form an exit strategy.

The foreign ministry has denied that the move was motivated by the alleged attack in Tabit, but said it had been under discussion for years.

In a separate statement published by Suna, Azraq said Darfur’s prosecutor general had finished his own investigations in Tabit and concluded that there was no proof or evidence to back up the report.

The conflict in the vast Darfur region of western Sudan has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced 2 million, according to the UN.

President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the international criminal court for alleged war crimes in the region.