Rebels accuse Sudanese militias of driving out villagers

CAIRO, Sept 23 (AFP) — Militiamen allied to the Sudanese government are burning villages in western Sudan and driving many people from their homes despite a truce with the region’s rebels, a rebel leader said Tuesday.

“I urge international organizations to provide immediate humanitarian aid for the large number of people who have arrived in our regions,” Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) president Abdel Wahed Mohammed Ahmed Nur told AFP.

In a telephone call to AFP Cairo from western Sudan, Nur said that since Monday, many inhabitants have been fleeing militiamen to areas under rebel control.

The inhabitants have been “fleeing the areas of Jabal Marrah, Wadi Salah, Kuttum north and other areas, after the pro-governmental militias set fire Monday to several villages despite the ceasefire,” he added.

The Sudanese government and the SLM signed a six-week ceasefire in Chad that took effect September 6, but the rebels have accused government forces of violating it several times.

Under the truce, official Sudanese sources said, the parties also agreed to control irregular armed groups and made a commitment to consolidate peace and stability in order to achieve development and prosperity in the area.

A senior Sudanese official told Sunday’s edition of the independent Al Ayam daily in Khartoum that the government would develop western Sudan as well as provide thousands of tonnes of domestic and international emergency food aid.

The conflict has raged since February in western Sudan’s Darfur states, where the SLM say they are fighting for an end to marginalisation and neglect of the large, impoverished region by central authorities.

An official in western Sudan said the fighting has cost 3,000 lives.

It has also left 400,000 displaced, according to UN estimates.