Held lawmakers are ‘prisoners of war’- rebels

ASMARA, June 3 (AFP) — Rebels operating in eastern Sudan on Friday confirmed they had captured three regional legislators and are holding them as “prisoners of war” a week after Sudanese reported they had been abducted.

Rebels from Sudan’s Eastern Front parade during a conference held by the Front north of Kassala town, near the Eritrean border on Friday April 1, 2005. (AFP) .

The Beja Congress, which is fighting perceived marginalization at the hands of Khartoum, said it had captured the trio along with three police officers during a battle with government troops in late May.

“I have been to see them, they are being well treated, they will stay with us for some time for interrogation,” said Ali Elsafi, a Beja Congress official told AFP in the Eritrean capital of Asmara.

“We will treat them as prisoners of war,” he said, adding that the six detainees were being held at a rebel base in eastern Sudan and not, as Khartoum has alleged, on Eritrean territory.

Elsafi did not give the exact date of the fighting or capture but on May 24 authorities in Sudan’s eastern Red Sea state reported that lawmakers Mahmud Osman, Taj al-Sir Dafaallah and Eisa al-Umdah had been taken by the rebels.

They said the three were seized as they returned from a government-sponsored economic conference in the neighboring state of Kassala.

The Beja Congress took up arms against Khartoum in 1994, citing years of marginalisation and underdevelopment, and was followed into conflict by several other insurgent groups.

There had been signs that the January 9 signing of a peace deal between Khartoum and southern Sudan rebels could lead to an end to the struggle in the east but those hopes all but collapsed later that month when government forces used deadly force to disperse a riot of Beja Congress supporters in Port Sudan.

Between 14 and 36 people were killed in the incident after which Khartoum pledged to hold talks with the rebels.

That offer has been met with widespread skepticism and the talks have yet to materialize with the eastern rebel groups vowing to continue their struggle and defend themselves from the government army and its proxy militia.