Chad denies Sudan attack claims
Jan 30, 2006 (NDJAMENA) — Chad has denied an allegation by neighbouring Sudan that its army made a weekend incursion across the border to attack a military position in the western Darfur region.
“The Chadian government denies the report that a Chadian artillery unit allegedly waged an attack on a Sudanese position 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Geneina,” government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said late Sunday.
“If there was an attack, it could only have been a clash between Sudanese forces and Darfur rebels, whose presence in this region is well known to African Union and humanitarian observers,” the spokesman, who is also communications minister, added in a statement.
Tension between Khartoum and N’djamena has mounted since Chad on December 23 declared a “state of belligerence” with Sudan after a series of border clashes, when each country accused the other of support for rebel groups.
Sudanese army spokesman General Al-Abbas Abdelrahman Khalifa charged in an earlier statement that a Chadian unit with artillery had on Saturday attacked the military position in West Darfur state.
“Our forces stood up to the attackers and drove them away, killing two Chadian soldiers in the process,” Khalifa said.
AU mediators between Darfur rebels and Khartoum on Monday warned that conflict at the weekend reported in both West Darfur and South Darfur was the worst since the start of the year and threatened peace talks.
The three states making up the Darfur region have since February 2003 been wracked by conflict between two rebel groups fighting Khartoum’s troops and their allies, an Arabic-speaking militia called the Janjaweed.
The conflict over what the rebels regard as marginalisation and oppression of the local population of black African origin has killed some 300,000 people and displaced two million others in nearly three years.
The AU-mediated peace negotiations are under way in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
The chief AU negotiator and special envoy to Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim, said in a statement Monday that the weekend violence came “at a crucial moment for the negotiations in Abuja, the vital final phase of the discussions.”
Salim made no reference to any clashes involving Chad.
His statement spoke of attacks in West Darfur and in the south, where the state police chief said Sunday that 18 rebels were killed and more than 50 wounded. Two government troops were reported killed and nine others injured in a battle on Saturday.
(ST/AFP)