A Second Iraq

More deaths in Darfur:

Militias backing Sudan’s government have killed at least 63 people in attacks in Darfur in the past week, African peacekeepers say.

At least 27 of the victims are thought to be children under the age of 12.

The attacks were carried on camps for the displaced in the rebel stronghold of Jebel Moon, in West Darfur.

The government says it is disarming the Janjaweed militia but a BBC correspondent in Sudan says all the evidence points to the exact opposite.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, meanwhile, is in China, thanking the Chinese for their support:

Sudan will not accept U.N. peacekeeping forces into its troubled Darfur region as it would risk turning the country into a second Iraq, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Friday.

Visiting the Chinese capital for a summit that brings together 48 African leaders, Bashir also thanked China for its support in the face of western pressure over a humanitarian crisis that the United States has labelled genocide.

Sudan has flatly rejected a 22,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur, aimed at bolstering about 7,000 under-funded, African troops on the ground, saying it amounted to colonialism.

“As regards the U.N. peacekeeping force, we decided that with such an army moving in to our country, the impact is going to be the same as what’s been happening in Iraq,” Bashir told a news conference…..

Bashir said only 10,000 people had died in Darfur compared with around 655,000 in Iraq following the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion — a figure from a study by U.S. and Iraqi public health teams.

I trust the Lancet and the John Hopkins team who came up with the 655,000 figure are happy to see their work being cited by the leader of a genocidal regime, in support of his continuing intransigence.