Sudan will treat Chadian mutineers as refugees – FM

Oct 20, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol Ajawin, said the government would treat the defected Chadian troops who entered the Sudanese territories as refugees, the state-run SUNA news agency reported.

On Friday 14 October, the N’djamena government said insurgents were about 40 soldiers. We are several hundreds, said the mutineers, who have vowed to overthrow President Idris Deby.

The deserters say they belong to SCUD, an acronym which means the Platform for Change, National Unity and Democracy.

In side Sudan they would be disarmed and would not be allowed to launch any military operations against Chad from within the Sudanese territories, the minister told the press.

Ajwinr said in a press conference he held Thursday 20 October at the premises of the Foreign Ministry that what had occurred was an internal matter that concerns Chad and Sudan will not interfere in the Chadian internal affairs.

Deby has long faced tensions within the ranks of his armed forces. And diplomats say mutineers that staged an uprising in N’djamena last year are from Deby’s Zagawa ethnic group and were expressing anger at their president’s lack of support for his kinsmen being battered in Darfur.

Chadian President Idriss Deby last year accused the Sudanese government of backing a 3,000-strong rebel force operating at the border.

Late last month Deby blamed the Sudanese militia known as the Janjawid for a cross-border attack in which at least 50 civilians were killed in the Ouaddai region.

(ST)