AU denounces Sudan airstrikes, says it violates ceasefire
Jan 22, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s air force bombed Darfur villages in violation of a recent ceasefire, hindering African and American attempts to unite rebel groups under a common leadership that can commit to peace, the African Union said Monday.
The A.U. comments were the first independent confirmation of reports from rebel leaders about the air raids in northern Darfur last week. The Sudanese military on Sunday denied the bombing raids.
“Preliminary investigations by (the African Union) have confirmed that the aerial bombings indeed took place” against the village of Anka and in the region of Wadi Korma last week, the A.U. said in a statement.
The A.U. didn’t mention any casualties, but the U.N. mission to Sudan said it received reports that two people were killed in other bombings in Ein Sirro, also in North Darfur province. Rebel leaders said the air raids also killed a large number of cattle and destroyed stocks of crop.
The bombings, which breach U.N. Security Council resolutions and a peace agreement, came after the Sudanese government vowed to adhere to a new truce brokered by visiting U.S. governor Bill Richardson and others earlier this month.
The A.U. deplored that the government bombed North Darfur “when efforts are being made to reenergize the peace process” by broadening support among rebels for the Darfur peace accord signed last May.
The U.S. and A.U. are trying to get Darfur’s fractious rebel groups to unite and enter peace talks in a bid to end the continuous violence in the wartorn region of western Sudan. The government signed the peace deal with one insurgent leader, but other rebels refused and the AU says there are now at least a dozen rebel factions in Darfur.
Several rebel leaders said last week’s bombings caught them as they were returning to their North Darfur bases from a meeting in neighboring Chad with Andrew Natsios, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, who urged them to agree on negotiations with the government.
A previous gathering of rebel chiefs was bombed late December, and the U.S. embassy in Khartoum, along with the A.U., are urging Sudanese authorities not to further prevent a meeting of Darfur’s many splintered rebel groups to prepare for new peace talks.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million fled their homes in Darfur since 2003, when rebels took arms against the central government, accusing it of neglect.
Khartoum is accused of having responded with indiscriminate air raids against civilian villages, and by unleashing the janjaweed paramilitary groups blamed for the bulk of the conflict’s atrocities.
The U.N. said that two people working for the World Food Program and an international aid group were held hostage for a day by janjaweed in North Darfur before being released Monday.
(AP)