civilians killed in army offensive in Darfur- rebels

CAIRO, Feb 14 (AFP) — Dozens of civilians have been killed in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the past 48 hours in a major offensive staged by army troops and their Arab militia allies, a rebel spokesman said Saturday.

Bahr Ibrahim, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement — the largest rebel group active in Darfur — said troops and militia had “killed dozens of civilians and burnt more than 200 villages” in the offensive launched Thursday.

Ibrahim, who spoke to AFP by telephone, said army Antonov aircraft had bombarded the area north and northeast of the village of Kuttum, in the north of the region — an area he said was entirely populated by civilians.

The spokesman accused the Sudanese army and its militia allies of pursuing a policy of “ethnic cleansing”, saying the attacks — which were ongoing Saturday — had targetted villages whose residents belonged to non-Arab ethnic groups.

“They also destroyed every water source in this arid area,” Ibrahim said. “The local population fled to the bushes or the mountains.”

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir said Monday that the army had crushed a year-old rebellion in the Darfur region, declaring an end to hostilities there and offering a general amnesty to rebels who surrender their weapons.

But on Thursday, a spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said that the rebels had retaken several towns and road links from government forces in the semi-desert area.

Some 3,000 people have been killed and another 670,000 displaced within Sudan itself by the war pitting government troops and their Arab militia allies against rebels drawn mainly from the region’s non-Arab minorities.

Another 100,000 Sudanese are estimated to have fled across the border into Chad because of the rebellion that erupted a year ago over the Darfur region’s alleged economic neglect by the government.