Darfur town emptied after attack

Crammed into school buildings in the centre of Suleia, just 200 out of the West Darfur town's original 25,000 population were left after an attack by militia and the Sudanese army.

Thursday was the first time anyone from outside had been able to reach the town and the people remaining were mostly elderly women, those with babies or old men.

They were not able to run as far as others to escape the bombing and the militia who looted and burned and killed.

Suleia was targeted as part of an army offensive on three towns to retake them from the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) almost a week earlier.

Among the survivors, Hawa Suleiman had no breast milk to feed her five-month-old baby after she spent a week under a tree with no food following the attack.

"The Janjaweed came and took everything, our food, our furniture," said the 35-year-old mother, who did not know where any of her other six children or her husband was.

Her face, cut with traditional tribal markings, was worn with worry as she struggled to quieten her crying, hungry child. She said she came back on Thursday because she heard aid workers had brought food.

A joint U.N.-humanitarian convoy brought food to the area for the first time since mid-December. Some 160,000 people had been cut off from aid since then, said U.N. official Amy Martin.

"We have not bathed for a week," said 75-year-old Mohamed Eissa Abdallah, bent over double with age and leaning on a wooden staff. His face and clothes were caked with dust and mud.

"I buried my brother with my own hands," he said.

Many of the survivors said at least one member of their family had been killed.

A Sudanese staff of the International Committee for the Red Cross was killed in the attack on Suleia. Washington calls the Darfur violence genocide, a term Khartoum rejects, blaming Western media for exaggerating the conflict.

The offensive was the largest in many months and aid agencies say it affected 50,000-60,000 people, less than initial rebel estimates of up to 200,000. Up to 12,000 refugees fled into neighbouring eastern Chad, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Residents say 114 people were killed in total by the attacks, but the army insists some were rebels wearing civilian clothes.

JANJAWEED ATTACK

Sudan denies any link to the militia, known locally as Janjaweed, who attacked all three towns just before their forces entered. Suleia residents said they saw three planes circle overhead as the militia rode into town.

"Only one bombed - a white Antonov," said elderly Mariam Abu Eissa.

JEM defeated Sudan's army and took control of the town in early December but, hearing of the impending attack they had left a few days before, one resident said.

Suleia elder Abdallah Ibrahim el-Nur said the bombing and militia killed some 32 people. They had buried many soon after but some bodies were only found after five days lying in the sun, rotten and bloated.

"Some of them were so burnt (from the bombing) that you could not even tell if they were women or men," Nur said.

He said the army arrived a day after the militia but took another four days to control their looting and drive them out. But he said the army never exchanged fire with the men.

"The government gives with its right hand and takes with its left," Nur said when asked how he felt that the army had bombed the town first before coming to secure it and drive away the armed looters.

But they did not go far. Four Suleia elders went to show a Reuters correspondent the site of the bombing, but ran into Janjaweed still lurking in the deserted east of the town.

One man on horseback took out his rifle and the Suleia residents ran, zigzagging until they took shelter and hid behind a walled hut.

Eventually joint U.N.-African Union peacekeepers and the Sudanese army arrived and the militia, who were shooting in the air, left.

But that brief experience was a clear indication why the few residents left in town were living in the school in the town's central square and had not returned to their homes.

Despite initial reports that the entire town had been burnt, only a few dozen homes had been scorched. But the Janjaweed continued to loot.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for a junior government minister and an allied militia leader accused of conspiring in war crimes. Khartoum refuses to hand them over.