Darfur militias 'kill children'

Militias backing Sudan's government have killed at least 63 people in attacks in Darfur in the past week, African peacekeepers say.

At least 27 of the victims are thought to be children under the age of 12.

The attacks were carried on camps for the displaced in the rebel stronghold of Jebel Moon, in West Darfur.

The government says it is disarming the Janjaweed militia but a BBC correspondent in Sudan says all the evidence points to the exact opposite.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged the Sudanese government to restrain the militias following the attacks.

Terrified

Militia wearing government uniforms, on camels and horseback, swept into eight villages and camps in Jebel Moon on 29 October.

The African Union (AU) investigation team has just returned from the area to make its report.

The area is a stronghold of the National Redemption Front (NRF) alliance, one of the Darfur rebel group which refused to sign up to a peace deal in May.

"The government have begun mobilising the Janjaweed widely, especially in West Darfur, because they want to clear the area and move north along the border and defeat us," said the NRF's Bahr Idriss Abu Garda.

The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Darfur says that all along the long border with Chad, villagers are fleeing terrified as the Janjaweed aggressively take up positions in key towns.

Three years ago, at the start of the Darfur crisis, the Janjaweed cleared hundreds of villages, displacing more than two million people.

With morale in the Sudanese army reported to be low, Khartoum seems to have turned once again to their most brutal of allies, our correspondent says.

Some 200,000 people have died in Darfur, with the Arab Janjaweed accused of ethnic cleansing against black Africans.

Sudan's government says the scale of the problems has been exaggerated and resists plans for the United Nations to take over the peacekeeping force from the AU.

Sudan denies directing Janjaweed

Sudan's government has rejected new allegations that it is giving direct support and orders to the Janjaweed Arab militia in the Darfur region.

A Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman told the BBC his government was instead working hard to try to disarm them.

Earlier, a UK asylum seeker known as Ali, who said he was in the Janjaweed, told the BBC he saw ministers giving orders at their training camps.

Ali said he took part in village raids after bombings by Sudan's air force.

He said the majority of casualties were civilians and that he had witnessed Janjaweed fighters raping women.

Khartoum has always denied any links to the Janjaweed, who have been accused of war crimes against civilians in Darfur.

More than two million people have fled their homes during the three-year conflict and more than 200,000 are estimated to have died.

Asylum

Sudanese government spokesman Ali al-Sadek told the BBC's Arabic Service that he believed the former Janjaweed fighter made his allegations on the BBC television programme Newsnight because he is claiming political asylum in the UK.

"I think this is a pretext that weakens everything he alleged," Mr Sadek said.

The spokesman also said the interior minister mentioned by Ali was not Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein - although Mr Hussein held the post until 2005.

Mr Al-Sadek reiterated the Sudanese government's denial of aiding any militias in Darfur, adding that the government was cooperating with the United Nations.

"We are seeking to seize the weapons of this bandit militia. We are exerting efforts alongside the UN and many other organisations in order to establish security and peace."

"Ali"

The former fighter, Ali, said the men who had trained them were wearing the uniforms of the Sudanese military, adding that Mr Hussein was a "regular visitor".

"The Janjaweed don't make decisions. The orders always come from the government," he said.

"They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained they will give us guns and ammunition."

Hilary Benn, a British government minister who visited Darfur on Monday, said the man's evidence was "clearly very serious".

Mr Benn urged him to speak to investigators from the International Criminal Court.

Smoking gun?

Meanwhile the Aegis Trust, which campaigns against genocide, has revealed details of a letter it believes is genuine and it says provides evidence of a systematic campaign to drive Africans from Darfur.

The US State Department is reported to have considerable doubts about its authenticity.

The copy of the letter, which has been seen by the BBC, is dated 16 August 2004 and is translated from Arabic.

Aegis Trust say they obtained it from a US Marines captain serving as an adviser to the African Union mission in Darfur.

It is signed by a Janjaweed commander and describes orders from Sudan's president to "change the demography of Darfur".

"We confirm that directives have been issued - to change the demography of Darfur and make it void of tribes of African origin - to kill, burn all farms, confiscate the belongings of tribes of African origin, forcibly displace them from Darfur, and kill their intellectuals and the youth, because they can join the fight with the rebels," the letter says.