UN rights chief says hundreds died in Darfur attack

GENEVA, Oct 9 (Reuters) The United Nations human rights chief said today ''several hundred'' civilians -- far more than first thought -- may have died in late August attacks by militias in the south of Sudan's violent Darfur region.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Louise Arbour, said the attacks appeared to have been carried out with the ''knowledge and material support'' of the government.

''The attacks ... were massive in scale, involving a large number of villages, and were carried out over only a few days. Government knowledge, if not complicity, in the attacks is almost certain,'' the OHCHR said in a report.

''The (OHCHR) ... is urging the government of Sudan to order an independent investigation into recent militia attacks that may have left hundreds of civilians dead in south Darfur,'' it said in an accompanying statement.

Early last month the High Commissioner's office put the possible death toll from raids near Buram at 38. Many of the 10,000 people in the 45 villages targeted in the attacks, which began on August 28 and lasted into September, were forced to flee.

But it revised the toll in its latest report on the situation in Darfur, drawn up together with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Sudan, and based on interviews with survivors of the attacks and other sources.

''The large-scale assaults resulted in chaotic displacement, widespread separation of families and scores of missing children,'' the report said. ''Most of the villages attacked were under government control,'' it added.

Sudan's Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi said Arbour's office were not using reliable sources, adding that the government did not back one side against another in Darfur.

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