Khartoum resuming Darfur air raids – rebels
Jan 21, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A Darfur rebel group has accused the Sudanese government of resuming air raids on the war-ravaged western region in violation of a fledgling US-brokered ceasefire.
“An Antonov plane on Saturday made six sorties and dropped 21 bombs in 45 minutes on Ein Siro village north of Kutum, in North Darfur,” said Haroun Ahmed Harran, an official of the breakaway Sudan Liberation Movement/Army-Unity (SLM/A-U).
Speaking by satellite phone from North Darfur, Harran said at least seven people were wounded and livestock were killed in the raid, which he said targeted a water well where shepherds and their flock had gathered.
He also said the nearby village of Korma was bombarded on Friday, but could not say whether that raid had claimed any victims.
The fresh air raids could not be independently confirmed, but similar reports were also made by other rebel factions in the same region.
Harran’s SLM/A-U is a splinter group of an SLM faction led by Abdel Wahid Nur which rejected a May 2006 peace deal signed signed between the movement’s mainstream and Khartoum.
An army spokesman was quoted in the Al-Ayyam daily newspaper on Sunday as denying the government had carried out air raids in Darfur.
“We are committed to respecting all ceasefire protocols signed with all Darfur movements, as well as our commitment to the agreement banning military flights in Darfur,” he said Sunday.
The spokesman said the security situation “is quiet all over Darfur,” adding: “There is no information about clashes between the (government) armed forces and the movements of Darfur.”
The government and rebel groups agreed earlier this month to a 60-day truce based on last year’s peace deal and brokered by US New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson during a visit to Khartoum.
According to UN figures, at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced since the February 2003 rebel uprising that was fiercely repressed by government troops and allied militias.
Some sources say the death toll in the four-year-old war is much higher.
Khartoum has come under mounting pressure to accept the deployment of UN peacekeepers to assist or supplement an embattled African Union contingent which has failed to stem the bloodshed.
The violence has worsened in recent months, and humanitarian agencies warned recently that they would not be able to continue their relief operations if security did not improve soon.
(AFP)