9,000 in just these two weeks?!?
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- More than 9,000 people have been displaced in Sudan’s Darfur region as a result of aerial bombing and fighting in the past two weeks, the United Nations said.
Sudanese government aircraft have been bombing rebel positions near the northern state capital of El-Fasher and the southern town of Muhajiriya for the past few days, the UN-led peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Unamid, said in statements. Ground battles between government forces and rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement have also taken place in both locations, it said.
“The security situation in Darfur remains tense,” Unamid said in an e-mailed statement today. “The Unamid camps in Gereda and Muhajiriya, South Darfur, continue to face an increase in the number of civilians seeking refuge as a result of recent clashes.”
The UN says that as many as 300,000 people have died in the region in the past six years, mainly through disease and malnutrition, while violence has forced 3 million more to flee their homes. The government puts the death toll at about 10,000.
In the town of Muhajiriya, 3,000 people have gathered around the peacekeeping base seeking shelter and protection, Unamid said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. About 2,000 people fled their homes and have arrived in El-Fasher and in other places along the border between North and South Darfur states, according to Zeljko Nikolich of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Another 4,000 are on their way, he said by phone from El-Fasher yesterday. Nikolich said OCHA received the figures in reports that could not be verified.
Gained Territory
JEM claims to have made gains in the Darfur area since a battle in Muhajiriya on Jan. 15, after a battle which dislodged a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army led by Minni Minnawi.
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