Sudan denies deadly air raid on village in Darfur

KHARTOUM, Feb 3 (AFP) — The Sudanese government on Thursday denied its air force attacked a village in Darfur killing 100 villagers and insisted it had never used aerial bombardment against civilians.

Sudanese displaced children are seen from inside a tent in the Internally Displaced Persons camp of Drage in Sudan’s southern Darfur region in 2004. (AFP).

“As soon as peace has been achieved in the south, some circles sparked a media campaign claiming that 100 civilians were killed in aerial bombardment,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The government is careful to protect civilians and will never shell them,” the ministry said, slamming what it called “inaccurate press statements”.

AU monitors have been seeking full access to Shangel-Topayi to determine what happened when Sudanese planes allegedly bombed the village, in what the AU said was a breach of a truce between rebels and government forces.

Crimes against civilians in Darfur are continuing while aid workers are “terrorised” and subject to arbitrary arrest, the United Nations envoy for Sudan said Wednesday.

Jan Pronk made the assessment two days after a UN panel accused the Khartoum government of gross and systematic human rights violations in Darfur but stopped short of labelling the violence in the region as genocide.

The conflict in Darfur follows a rebel uprising in February 2003 against neglect by the Arab government in Khartoum of the African Sudanese in the desert region of western Sudan.

Khartoum responded to the rebellion with a deadly show of force by Arab militias called the Janjaweed accused of having waged a scorched-earth campaign against non-Arab civilians to bring down the rebels.

Around 70,000 people are estimated to have died in Darfur, many from hunger and disease, while some 1.5 million others have been displaced, many into squalid and dangerous camps.