SLA accused of killing, abducting policemen in Darfur: newspaper
KHARTOUM, Nov 23 (AFP) — Rebels in Sudan’s violence-plagued western Darfur region killed a police sergeant and abducted five other policemen, a government newspaper reported Sunday.
Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) rebels launched the attack Friday on Merinshik in South Darfur State, the Al-Anbaa daily quoted an unnamed source as saying.
The five policemen were taken to the SLM’s Kidnair camp in the Jebel Marrah area, it added.
Since February, government forces have clashed with the SLM which accuses Khartoum of neglecting the impoverished North, West and South Darfur states in the region neighboring Chad.
The government and the SLM have twice met in Chad since September, agreeing on a ceasefire but making no major progress toward ending a conflict that has cost an estimated 3,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Despite reports of violations, the shaky ceasefire is holding. However, there are no signs that Arab tribesmen serving in pro-government militias have stopped burning villages and farmland, relief workers say.
Conflicts have long simmered between ethnic Arab nomadic tribesmen and African farmers, but they appear to have spun out of control since the government used them in the war against the rebels, relief workers say.
A Sudanese daily said meanwhile that a man was sentenced to death by hanging and six others fined after they were found guilty of involvement in a tribal clash in South Darfur State last July in which eight people were killed.
Reporting from Southern Darfur capital Nyala, the independent Akhbar Al-Youm daily said the special criminal court Saturday sentenced the seven Maalia tribesmen and acquitted 46 others for lack of evidence.
The clash for which the trial was held erupted between the sedentary Maalia and pastoral Rizaiqat tribes, killing seven Rizaiqat men and one Maalia tribesman.
It was the second clash between the two Arab tribes.
The first occurred last year when 54 Maalia tribesmen were killed. Afterwards, 86 Rizaiqats were sentenced to death by hanging, but the punishment has yet to be imposed, pending an appeal by the convicts.
The newspaper quoted the defence lawyers as saying they would appeal the death sentence handed down on the Maalia tribesman.