Waiting for the slaughter

Rasha Ibrahim Adam and her children may be about to die - just as she thought they had all escaped to safety.

The 38-year-old mother of four children is one of the latest to flee the bombs from the Sudanese government that have dropped on their homes. Today, she finds herself in one of the dusty, benighted refugee camps that litter the region of Darfur. She sits in her once bright red tob - a wrap-around dress - that has been faded by the sand-laden wind that blows across al-Salaam camp on the edge of the town of el-Fasher.

She is one of the 50,000 people who have swollen the scorched camps for the "internally displaced" in the past month - bringing to about 2.5 million the number of children, women and men now homeless in a conflict that has dragged on for three years without an end seemingly in sight. Until now, that is. Because an end is in sight for the Darfur camps - where up to 300,000 black African farmers have been slaughtered by the Khartoum government and its Arab proxies, the Janjaweed militia, whose name means "devils on horseback". One of those who died was Rasha's husband, Adam.

It could be an end so terrifying, it defies the imagination.

The fear is that the rest of Adam Ibrahim Adam's family - and many of the two million people of the Fur, Massaleit or Zaghawa tribes in the camps - may soon perish too.

The 7,000 troops of the African Union, who have been desperately trying to protect the camps, have been told by Khartoum they must leave Darfur at the end of this month when their mandate runs out. Sudan has defied a UN resolution that mandated an improved 20,000- strong blue-hatted UN force to take over.

Instead, it is sending 10,000 of its own troops to the region for what human rights observers fear will be a brutal "final solution".

In a situation already described by the UN as the "world's worst humanitarian disaster" the genocide so long denied by the Arab government in Khartoum may be about to happen.

"We're on the brink of a massive catastrophe," said one senior Western diplomat yesterday. "If there is no Plan B for Darfur, all- out genocide is highly likely," said James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, which is co-ordinating a worldwide protest that will take place in 32 countries tomorrow.

About 7,000 Sudanese troops have already arrived in Darfur, with the avowed aim of crushing those rebel groups who failed to sign up to the Darfur Peace Deal agreed in the Nigerian capital of Abuja in May. Aid workers throughout those parts of the province that are still accessible say the signs are that a major new offensive will start in the next three weeks.

Government troops and military ordnance have been pouring into el- Fasher airport for seven weeks now. Preliminary attacks have already begun. Yesterday, there were reports of the bombing of Dobo Madrasa, and another unnamed village, to the east of the Jebel Marra mountains.

The day before, the government bombed seven villages south of Tawillatown, including Tabarat and Tina, after which about 45 vehicles carrying government troops swept into the area. Local people fled the villages to hide in the mountains.

The tall and dignified Rasha - her name has been changed to protect her identity - described what happened when the government attacked her village near Kulkul. "I was feeding my two-year-old son when I heard the plane. I knew immediately what it meant," she said. "I started to run but didn't know where to go.

"Then the bombs dropped and soon everybody was running and my boy was screaming. The bombing didn't last long but to me it felt like days, and I didn't know where my other children were or what happened to them. Eventually, they came running to me - they'd been hiding with friends near the mosque.

"Two people were killed but we knew the bombers would be back, so nearly the whole village decided to leave. All around us is fighting but to the north the fighting is the worst so we headed south to el- Fasher.

"We walked for days and arrived here in al-Salaam camp. We all walked together to try and keep safe - it was very slow with young children and old women and some of the children were abducted on the way. We still don't know what's happened to them. Now I'm here with all my children and I thank Allah that we are safe and alive."

But for how long? The Sudanese government is making its preparations, brazenly, before the eyes of the world. On Tuesday, the EU's special envoy, Pekka Haavisto, on a three-day visit to the region, witnessed Antonov-20 planes loading bombs in el-Fasher, the regional capital of North Darfur, in preparation for an attack. The Sudanese military roll bombs from the doors of these cargo planes' rights observers saw a woman and seven children injured near Kulkul when a bomb was rolled from the back of an Antonov.

Khartoum is flagrant in its flouting of the authority of the African Union mission in Darfur. This week, the government seized a tanker full of AU jet fuel in el-Fasher and used it to fill its own aircraft which are arriving daily there delivering troops and arms.