Sudan says is it consulting Chad about reports of cross-border raids by Sudanese militia

KHARTOUM, Sudan, May 10, 2004 (AP) — Sudan says it has contacted Chad about a reported militia incursion into eastern Chad, saying it wishes to avoid an escalation in fighting.

In a statement published in the official newspaper Al-Anba on Monday, the minister of state at the Foreign Ministry, Najeeb Khair Abdel Wahab, said recent developments in Sudan’s western province of Darfur had “required further consultations” between Sudan and Chad.

Chad’s acting defense minister, Emmanuel Nadingar, said Sunday that hundreds of Sudanese militiamen on camels had raided the village of Djanga, 25 kilometers (15 miles) inside Chad. In the ensuing battle, 60 militiamen, a Chadian soldier and six Chadian civilians had been killed.

Nadingar accused the militia, known as janjaweed, of repeatedly attacking Chadian forces and civilians. “That’s not going to continue any more,” he said. “We have an obligation to protect our population and our border and that’s what we are going to do.”

In his statement, Abdel Wahab did not confirm the incursion but said: “Consultations are underway between the Sudanese and Chadian governments to overcome the current situation and to avoid military escalation in Darfur, bearing in mind that (such escalation) would negatively affect the situation in Chad.”

The fighting in Darfur pits Sudan’s Arab-dominated government and a militia made up of Arab nomads against black African residents, some of whom have taken up arms to demand more autonomy for the western Sudanese region of Darfur, which shares a border with Chad.

The violence has driven more than 1 million people from their homes in what human rights groups say is a deliberate push to change the ethnic makeup of Darfur’s population. More than 100,000 of the refugees have fled into Chad, where aid groups warn of an impending humanitarian crisis.

On Sunday the government said Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir had ordered a committee to investigate the human rights situation in Darfur, where human rights groups and U.N. officials accuse the government and allied militia of a campaign of “ethnic cleansing.”

The government did not say whether the committee, which is to be headed by former chief justice Daffalla Hajj Yusuf, would travel to Darfur. Nor did it say when it would begin its work.