SUDAN: Sudan's foreign minister said yesterday Sudanese soldiers would fight back if foreign troops entered his country to quell ethnic violence in its western Darfur region, but said he hoped this would not happen.
The United States Congress has branded the Darfur violence as genocide and both Washington and the European Union have threatened economic sanctions. Britain and Australia have both said they might send troops as UN peacekeepers to the region.
"If we are attacked we will not sit silent, we will retaliate . . . but we definitely hope we do not reach that situation," Foreign Minister Mr Mustafa Osman Ismail told a news conference during a visit to Turkey. "We are not looking for confrontation and we hope we will not be pushed to that," he said.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell said afterwards it was premature to discuss military intervention for Sudan's Darfur region after a British army commander said his nation could provide 5,000 troops if needed.
"Some nations have gone farther and started to talk about other action of a military nature but I think that's premature," Mr Powell said.
The US told UN Security Council members yesterday to be ready to vote this week on a resolution warning Sudan to protect Darfur civilians despite objections from China and others.
The US-drafted resolution threatens unspecified sanctions against Sudan in 30 days if Khartoum does not prosecute Arab militias, called Janjaweed, blamed for murder, rape and pillaging. In the meantime, the measure puts an weapons embargo on armed groups in Darfur.
Meanwhile, relief agencies in Darfur are finding it more difficult to reach displaced people. Although most of the 180,000 black Africans who have fled to Chad to escape Janjaweed militias are now in camps, thousands more are living with local communities near the border, cut off from most aid.
These refugees do not have access to the food handouts or daily medical clinics in the camps and have to rely instead on the generosity of Chadian villagers and occasional visits by aid workers to these isolated areas.
Ms Sophie Villemaire, a Canadian nurse from medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said the refugees living away from the camps used to be easier to find as they set up a makeshift community close to a pick-up point for transfers to the camps.
But the arrival of the rainy season about a month ago turned the land from semi-desert into fertile green terrain and local people needed the area the refugees were camping on for farming.
The refugees have since dispersed to live with host families in villages or try to make their own way to camps some 50km away.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it planed to build at least one more camp in the Adre area - which is hosting some 50,000 refugees in camps and communities - to take in the overspill from Bredjing and refugees still at the border.