The BBC has found the first evidence that China is currently helping Sudan\'s government militarily in Darfur. The Panorama TV programme tracked down Chinese army lorries in the Sudanese province that came from a batch exported from China to Sudan in 2005. The BBC was also told that China was training fighter pilots who fly Chinese A5 Fantan fighter jets in Darfur. China\'s government has declined to comment on the BBC\'s findings, which contravene a UN arms embargo on Darfur. The embargo requires foreign nations to take measures to ensure they do not militarily assist anyone in the conflict in Darfur, in which the UN estimates that about 300,000 people have died. More than two million people are also believed to have fled their villages in Darfur, destroyed by pro-government Arab Janjaweed militia.
Plates on the first truck show it was imported after the embargo Panorama traced the first lorry by travelling deep into the remote deserts of West Darfur. They found a Chinese Dong Feng army lorry in the hands of one of Darfur\'s rebel groups. The BBC established through independent eyewitness testimony that the rebels had captured it from Sudanese government forces in December. The rebels filmed a second lorry with the BBC\'s camera. Both vehicles had been carrying anti-aircraft guns, one a Chinese gun. Markings showed that they were from a batch of 212 Dong Feng army lorries that the UN had traced as having arrived in Sudan after the arms embargo was put in place. The lorries came straight from the factory in China to Sudan and were consigned to Sudan\'s defence ministry. The guns were mounted after the lorries were imported from China.
When it is shooting or firing there is nowhere for you to move and the sound is just like the sound of the rain Hamaad Abakar Adballa describing attack by anti-aircraft gun The UN started looking for these lorries in Darfur three years ago, suspecting they had been sent there, but never found them. \"We had no specific access to Sudanese government army stores, we were not allowed to take down factory codes or model numbers or registrations etc to verify these kinds of things,\" said EJ Hogendoorn, a member of the UN panel of experts that was involved in trying to locate the lorries.