West Sudan rebels say Khartoum breaks truce

KHARTOUM, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Rebels in western Sudan accused the government on Sunday of breaking a ceasefire signed last week to end seven months of fighting in an arid, poor part of Africa’s largest country.

The governor of Darfur province, where the rebel Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLM/A) had been fighting Khartoum since February, declined to comment. Khartoum says it is committed to the truce.

SLM/A Secretary-General Minni Arcua Minnawi said two government helicopter gunships killed two rebels and injured four on Sunday when they fired on an SLM/A garrison, in an area north of the town of al-Fashir, 800 km (500 miles) southwest of Khartoum.

The gunships were accompanying a land convoy of government forces heading towards the garrison, he added.

“The gunships started firing (on the garrison) when the convey was 30 km (20 miles) from the garrison,” Minnawi said.

The SLM/A did not return fire and the convoy stopped about 1 km (half a mile) from the garrison, he said.

The ceasefire, which was signed in Chad on Wednesday, was supposed to come into force on Saturday.

The SLM/A, which accuses Khartoum of neglecting Darfur, also accused the government of bombing targets in the province on Wednesday after the signing of the truce.

The truce included a halt to hostilities, the release of all prisoners and an agreement to hold peace talks which would begin after an initial 45-day ceasefire period.

Sudan is currently in talks in Kenya to end another civil conflict with southern rebels who have been fighting the government for 20 years in a war that has killed some two million people.