Sudan denies involvement in Chad fighting
February 3, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan on Sunday denied any involvement in fighting in Chad where rebels allegedly backed by Khartoum have besieged the presidential palace in Ndjamena.
“We want the situation to calm down and to continue to have good neighbourly relations.”
A foreign ministry statement called for restraint from all parties and for dialogue to resolve their differences as fierce fighting rocked Ndjamena for a second day.
Rebels have surrounded President Idriss Deby in his palace while hundreds of foreigners have fled the former French colony in Central Africa.
Sudan appealed to give “care to the civilians and protect their lives and properties and ensure their rights in security, peace and decent living,” the statement said, voicing particular concern for Sudanese refugees in Chad.
Staff at Sudan’s embassy in Ndjamena are “well and safe,” it added, expressing the hope ‘that security and stability will prevail all over sisterly Chad soon.’
With international aid organisations reporting bodies in the streets and looting in the capital, anti-tank and automatic weapons fire was heard around the presidential palace where Deby has been holed up since Friday.
The rebel force in pickup trucks started moving across the desert from a base near the eastern border with Sudan on January 28, but major fighting only erupted on Friday as they neared the capital.
Chad also accused Sudan of giving military backing to rebels who launched a new attack on Sunday on an eastern town near the border between the two countries.
The rebels were helped by Sudanese helicopters and Antonov military aircraft in an attack on the town of Adre, local government official General Abadi Sair told AFP.
Chad’s Foreign Minister Amad Allam-Mi has accused Sudan of masterminding the rebel offensive in a bid to halt a planned European peacekeeping force (EUFOR) in Chad and Central African Republic to protect refugees, mostly from Darfur.
The campaign by three rebel commanders has opened up a new conflict next to Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region and the deployment of European peacekeepers mission in Chad and neighbouring Central African Republic has been suspended.
“Sudan does not want this force because it would open a window on the genocide in Darfur,” the minister told Radio France Internationale, adding that Sudan was trying ‘to install a regime in Chad that will bow to it.’
Chad on Friday told the UN Security Council that it plans to use its right of self-defence to repel ‘the aggression orchestrated’ by Sudan, including pursuing rebels across the border.
(AFP)