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While the international community procrastinated last week about whether events in Darfur constitute genocide, I visited the Ardamata refugee camp in Geneina, where 30,000 people are sheltering. Tribal leaders there testified to a campaign of killing, rape, burning and looting by the Janjaweed militias which have killed an estimated 70,000 people and displaced 1.4 million others. Three months ago, the UN described the situation in Darfur as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis". On my two-day visit, I found that nothing much has changed. The government of Sudan has reneged on its promise to disarm the Janjaweed. Their campaign has the sole objective of eradicating the black tribes and installing the Arabs in their place. If this isn't genocide, then it's difficult to imagine what on earth is. I have sent a full report to Tony Blair and will ask a question about Darfur in the House of Lords today. My report is a catalogue of systematic violence driven by ethnic hatred and aided by the Sudanese regime. We heard first-hand accounts of the rape of girls as young as 10 and women as old as 80. Men wept as they recounted the humiliations and killings. The report is on the website of the human rights group the Jubilee Campaign, which arranged the visit (www.jubileecampaign.co.uk). [more

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