West Sudan rebels say government air raid kills 40
KHARTOUM, Dec 1 (Reuters) – West Sudan rebels said on Monday 40 civilians were killed and 60 injured when a government plane bombed villages in raids in the poor and arid Darfur region.
A local government official had no specific information about the bombings in Western Darfur state, about 1100 km (690 miles) southwest of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, but said government forces were operating in that area in response to rebel actions.
Rebels regularly report attacks by government forces or its militias, but independent verification is difficult to obtain in the remote west, where the United Nations says at least 500,000 people have been displaced by fighting this year.
Khalil Ibrahim, chairman of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, told Reuters from Paris the latest attacks targeted villages northeast of the town of Geneina on Sunday and was part of a government offensive heading north to areas controlled by rebel groups.
The group said last week that rebels and villagers killed 186 government-armed militia in an area southwest of Geneina.
The Justice and Equality Movement is one of two main rebel groups in the region. The other group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), agreed a ceasefire with the government in September, although both sides have accused the other of violations.
The SLA, which emerged as fighting force in February, accuses Khartoum of marginalising the area. The Justice and Equality Movement, which has not agreed a truce, says it wants autonomy for the region and a fairer share of Sudan’s resources.
“An Antonov (plane) from the Sudanese government bombed a civilian area and killed 40 people including women, children and old people,” the Justice and Equality Movement’s general coordinator, Abu Bakr Hamid al-Nur, told Reuters.
“Three villages were completely burnt out and around 60 people have been injured,” al-Nur said.
Suleiman Abdullah, governor of Western Darfur state, said he had no details on Sunday’s casualties, but added: “There is ongoing military activity there in response to the actions of those factions that have placed themselves outside the rule of law.”
Sudan is in separate peace talks in Kenya with a southern-based rebel group to end a two-decade-old civil war in the south of Africa’s largest country that has killed about two million people, mostly from famine or disease.