UN condemns Darfur rebel attack
July 6, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The UN chief envoy in Sudan condemned on Thursday an attack by Darfur rebels who seized a town in a neighbouring province this week in a deadly spillover of the conflict.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special representative Jan Pronk described the attack on Hamrat al-Sheikh that left at least 12 people dead as “a serious event which we hope will not have adverse effects on the Darfur peace process”.
“It remains to be seen if that attack will mark the beginning of a new strategy to extend hostilities outside Darfur by the holdout rebel groups behind the assault or if it was just an isolated attack,” he said.
The Sudanese army said that Hamrat al-Sheikh in North Kordofan province was attacked Monday by forces linked to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which has rejected a Darfur peace deal. The army later retook control.
The UN mission in the Sudan “will be closely watching the situation and its potential consequences on the peace process in Darfur”, Pronk said.
The Sudanese government said it had lodged official complaints with the UN Security Council and the African Union and had protested to Eritrea, which it accused of harbouring the rebels.
The JEM rejects a peace deal signed in the Nigerian capital Abuja in May by Khartoum and the main Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM).
The attack on Hamrat al-Sheikh, a town that lies more than 500km west of Khartoum and neighbours Darfur, marks one of the worst violations of the truce as well as a widening of the conflict.
The African Union-mediated Darfur peace agreement aims to end more than three years of war in the region that has killed an estimated 300 000 people and displaced more than two million others.
(ST)