Sudan to probe recent clash between police, former Darfur rebels
April 2, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday ordered an investigation into a recent clash between police and a former Darfur rebel faction that left 11 people dead and more than 15 others injured.
A faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement has blamed the government police for the shootout that erupted in Omdurman, located across the Nile River from the capital of Khartoum, on March 24. Two policemen and nine SLM members, including a woman, were killed in the clashes.
The U.S. State Department last week joined the U.N. and the African Union in a call for a full investigation into the bloody clashes.
The violence was especially troubling because the SLM faction leader Minni Minawi was the sole rebel chief to sign the already weak Darfur Peace Agreement with the Sudanese government last May in Abuja, Nigeria.
Rejected by a strong majority of Darfur’s population and most of the local rebel factions, the peace deal has done little to end violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in four years of conflict.
The recent clashes appeared to be one of the worst breaches to the Darfur peace deal between Minawi’s faction and the government.
Sudanese officials have blamed the fighting on a traffic accident caused by SLM fighters who then were said to have resisted arrest. The former rebels accused Sudanese forces of attacking their compound with heavy weaponry and killing injured SLM members in their hospital beds.
(AP)