Continued violence in Sudan's Darfur alarms MSF

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Continued treatment of people injured in western Sudan's troubled Darfur region showed that violence is still rife there, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said here Wednesday.
"Our teams are still witnessing repeated violence against the population," said Rowan Gillies, president of MSF international in a statement to PANA in Nairobi.
"We are deeply concerned about this and its consequences for our patients and their families," he added The international medical aid agency said in the last three weeks it had treated 52 victims for violence related injuries.
The MSF said on 24 July that its team in Shangil Tobaya, in north Darfur, witnessed an attack on the internally displaced people's (IDP) camp, located directly next to the MSF clinic.
The assailants used grenades and burnt several shelters in the camp, forcing hundreds of IDP's to again run for their lives.
The MSF team provided medical assistance to 14 people, all of them civilians with bullet and shrapnel wounds.
Four of the injured were children, said Gillies.
On 16 July, he added, 23 people had to be admitted at the MSF hospital in Mornei, in west Darfur.
All were injured when violence broke out during a food distribution in the IDP camp.
Nine of them were injured by bullets, two of them died at the hospital and six of them had to be referred to the El Geneina hospital, where one remains in a critical condition.
Also in Mornei, on 11 July, MSF said its medical team treated 15 women at its clinic that had been raped and beaten.
In all cases, medical personnel found clinical evidence of rape and beatings.
All received emergency treatment to prevent serious medical complications that can be the consequence of rape.
Just one month earlier, on 9 June, the agency said its medical team in Korma, in north Darfur, examined and treated 15 women who had been attacked the day before.
Five of these had been raped, one was 15 years of age and another one was three months pregnant.
All had been beaten and humiliated.
MSF said from January to May 2005, its teams treated over 500 persons for violence-related injuries and 278 women for rape.
MSF has been working in Darfur since December 2003.
With 180 international and 3,000 Sudanese staff operating in 32 locations across the region, Darfur continues to be one of MSF's largest operations world-wide.