International elder statesmen including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former US President Jimmy Carter, and Virgin tycoon Richard Branson have reported that Darfur was rife with violence and was deeply divided, after returning from the region today.
The influential figures issued a warning that rape was widespread and was still being ignored by the Sudanese authorities.They also urged more pressure to be placed on Khartoum to hand over war crimes suspects for trial at the International Criminal Court.
The delegation also included veteran women and children's rights advocate Graca Machel. They stayed consistent with reports that Darfur has witnessed mass or widespread rape, a problem Khartoum denies, trying to muzzle rape reports by the world's largest aid operation.
"Every woman told us, we are raped, we are beaten and we are harassed," Machel said. "We are very concerned that it doesn't seem to have changed for the better, on the contrary it has changed for the worse. We were even told that yesterday a girl as young as 10 years was raped."
Machel said the Sudanese government had to accept there was rape and then help form a plan to combat it. But she said bringing up the issue with Khartoum officials was discouraging.
"I must confess it was one of the most depressing moments of discussion. The government doesn't have any understanding of what it means when women have to say repeatedly to different people ... we have been raped, we are being beaten, we are being brutalised, we are fearful."
ATROCITIES
Carter said Washington's use of the term genocide to describe the situation in Darfur, where international estimates say 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million driven from their homes, was unhelpful.
