Sudan says exchanged fire with troops straying from Chad

March 4, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese troops exchanged fire with foreign troops who twice strayed across the border from Chad into west Sudan killing at least one civilian, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Sudanese authorities said “non-African” forces twice crossed the remote unmarked border between southeastern Chad and war-ravaged Darfur on Monday, sparking deadly exchanges of fire.

The EU peacekeeping mission in Chad reported one soldier missing after troops “accidentally” strayed into Sudan.

“At a Sudanese checkpoint five kilometres (three miles) inside Sudanese territory, a military jeep crossed and exchanged fire with the checkpoint inside Sudanese territory,” said foreign ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq.

“The jeep is totally damaged. Five or six white soldiers fled back to the Chadian territories on foot. They have not been pursued.

“An hour later another three military jeeps protected by military helicopter came back and some casualties have been reported,” Sadiq said.

Army spokesman Osman Mohammed al-Agbash said a Sudanese soldier and a civilian were killed, accusing the foreign forces of deliberately entering Sudanese territory.

“There was a brief exchange of fire when a vehicle carrying non-African forces entered Sudanese territory and was fired upon. Then three more non-African forces vehicles arrived. There were no casualties on their side.

“You can’t do something twice and say it was a mistake,” said Agbash.

The Sudanese foreign ministry said it had no information that anyone was detained in the incident.

A spokesman for the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur, a vast, impoverished region in the throes of a civil war between ethnic rebels and the Khartoum government, had no immediate information.

“We’re still trying to establish what the details are,” Adrian Edwards told AFP by telephone from Darfur.

In Paris overnight, EUFOR said one soft-skinned Landrover-type vehicle strayed unintentionally three kilometres into Sudan in the Tissi area.

“An attempted recovery of the vehicle was met with hostile fire and they left the area. At this time, it can be stated that one EUFOR personnel is currently missing,” it said.

The army headquarters in Paris said the missing soldier was French, adding that another French soldier found in the vehicle was recovered.

The second soldier, lightly wounded, was evacuated by helicopter to a field hospital in the Central African Republic.

Sudan said it was working to ensure that such a “serious” incident does not happen again, warning EUFOR it had no mandate to cross international borders.

“This is serious. We are working to make sure this would not happen again. The EU force in Chad has a clear mandate and this does not give them the right to cross into Sudanese territory,” said the foreign ministry spokesman.

The 14-nation EUFOR mission of 3,700 troops to Chad and the Central African Republic deployed last month after a brief delay caused by a rebel assault on the Chadian capital Ndjamena.

It has a United Nations mandate to protect refugees from western Sudan’s strife-wracked Darfur region as well as people internally displaced by rebel insurgency in Chad and the northern CAR.

Since the Darfur conflict began five years ago, at least 200,000 people have died and 2.2 million have fled their homes after ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Sudan’s Arab-dominated regime, the United Nations says.

Last month, a senior UN official warned in New York that violence between Sudan and Chad fought out by rebel groups on each side threatened to destabilise the region and could lead to a regional war.

“Continuing accusations by both governments of their support for rebel movements on each side of the border increase the climate of mistrust, fuel tensions between the two countries, and once again demonstrate the potential for a conflict of international dimensions in the area,” said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of UN peacekeeping operations.

(AFP)