Rebels, Sudanese army clash in North Darfur
Oct 10, 2006 (KUTUM) — A bout of intense fighting has erupted in the northern part of Darfur, with hundreds of rebels and Sudanese government troops wounded or captured in clashes this week near the border with Chad – a flare-up likely to worsen the humanitarian situation, international observers and a rebel group said Tuesday.
Separately, the Sudanese air force is bombing villages in rebel-controlled areas north of the regional capital of Al Fasher, the international groups said. The number of civilian casualties in these bombings is not known, the United Nations mission in Sudan said. The Sudanese military on Tuesday denied the bombings were continuing.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo called for stepped-up support to a beleaguered African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.
“It is not in the interests of Sudan, nor in the interests of Africa, nor indeed in the interests of the world, for us all to stand by and see genocide being developed in Darfur,” Obasanjo, the leader of Africa’s most-populous nation, told diplomats, U.N. and AU officials during a visit to Ethiopia.
The U.N. says at least 18,000 people have fled fighting in North Darfur in the past month alone, streaming into refugee camps in El Fasher.
That has worsened a refugee problem that already had seen 2.5 million people displaced from their homes in the last three years. More than 200,000 people are believed to have been killed.
Sudan has long accused Chad of supporting the Darfur rebels, and Chad has in turn accused Khartoum of backing a rebellion in eastern Chad. Both countries reopened their borders in August, and resumed diplomatic relations that they had severed in April, but analysts warn the ongoing war in Darfur threatens to destabilize the entire region.
The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday it was hoping to move 40,000 Darfur refugees living in Chad away from camps close to the Sudanese border because of nearby gunfire and bombardment.
“The ongoing deterioration of the security situation in Darfur and increasing insecurity throughout eastern Chad highlights the urgent need to move Sudanese refugees,” Jennifer Pagonis, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in Geneva.
The latest violence, which began Saturday, pits Sudanese government forces against a relatively new group of Darfur rebels known as the National Redemption Front. The coalition loosely regroups various rebel factions who oppose a peace agreement signed in May between the government and the main rebel group.
The U.N. says both the government offensive and rebel attacks violate the agreement. But Sudan’s government opposes a plan to replace the AU peacekeeping force with a 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission.
The latest fighting began Saturday near Bahia, along the porous border between Sudan and Chad in the far northwest of Darfur.
The rebels said in a statement that they were attacked by a force of Sudanese army and a pro-government militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, accused of some of the worst atrocities against ethnic African villagers in fighting that began in 2003.
The rebels, who claimed they had won the clashes, said government forces attacked with 2,000 fighters on camels, horses and more than 100 armored vehicles.
The Sudanese military on Tuesday confirmed the clashes in North Darfur but would not say how many of its forces were killed or wounded.
“The army is only trying to defend its positions after it was attacked by rebels,” a spokesman for the military said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
An aid worker in Chad, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Sudanese soldiers had crossed the border into eastern Chad during the attack.
But three international observers based in Darfur said they believed the assault was jointly launched by NRF rebels and a unit from the Chadian army that had crossed the border into Sudan. Each of the three is from a different international group and all three spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.
One of the observers showed The Associated Press a document by an international group that outlined details of the recent fighting.
Some 350 Sudanese soldiers were captured with their weapons and more than 70 vehicles taken, the observer said, citing the battle reports.
A statement on Chad’s state-run radio said that 103 Sudanese soldiers had asked for help after a battle, and that six were still receiving medical treatment while the rest were to be repatriated to Sudan. It had no comment on whether its forces had crossed into Sudan.
(AP/ST)