Sudanese troops regain home after Comoros operation

April 13, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese army troops which participated in the African Union operation in Anjouan Island returned to the Sudanese capital on Thursday 10 April.

Sudanese troops were part of the African Union contingent who had backed the government’s bid to oust a renegade colonel who had seized control of Anjouan.

Anjouan is part of the Comoros — an archipelago of three main islands 250 miles off Africa’s southeast coast. Each of the three main islands has a regional president under the country’s main leader, President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, who is based in Moroni on Grand Comore.

Gen Yaqub Ibrahim Isma’il, the commander of the Ninth Airborne Division received the first batch on Thursday.

Colonel Mohamed Bacar, the 45-year-old renegade leader of Anjouan, seized power in Anjouan — one of three islands in the Comoros federation — in 2001 and was confirmed in office by an election in 2002.
In 2007, the French-trained officer staged another election to confirm his re-election, but the vote was rejected as illegal by both the Comoros federal government and the African Union.

Currently, there is a government arrest warrant for Bacar to be extradited back to the Comoros from the French island of Reunion, where he was flown and placed under house arrest on illegal arms possession charges.

Lailizamane Abdou Cheik, was sworn on Monday March 31 as the Comoran island’s interim leader, pending elections in two or three months.

(ST)