119 civilians killed in eastern Sudan air raid last January – minister
May 25, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese minister of Defense told the National Assembly that air raid by foreign warplanes in eastern Sudan killed some 119 civilians, the official SUNA reported today.
However minister Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, who was responding to a question posed by the head of security and national defense committee at the federal parliament, said The convoy had been transporting illegal immigrants to Egypt.
Hussein further said that of about a thousand people in the convoy, 119 were killed: 56 smugglers and 63 would be immigrants, from Ethiopia, Somalia and other countries.
Speaking to CBS News, an Israeli official said their intelligence service had discovered that weapons to Hamas were being trucked through Sudan to Gaza through the Sinani Desert.
The spokesperson of the Sudanese army admitted the air raid last March when the issue had been disclosed and largely reported. Osman Al-Agbash said that the army “took all necessary procedures and contacted parties of concern with this issue”.
Asked why the incident was not made public when it occurred, Al-Agbash said that “the government and specialized agencies determine the right time for that [disclosure]”.
Also at the time, the Sudanese state minister for highways Mabrouk Mubarak Saleem who is from eastern Sudan, said that 800 people were killed in the attack including 200 Sudanese and the remaining 600 were Somalis and Eritreans.
Israel has declined to confirm or deny the reports on its involvement but the then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the government is “operating in every area in which terrorist infrastructures can be struck”.
“We are operating in locations near and far and attack in a way that strengthens and increases deterrence…..there is no point in elaborating. Everyone can use their imagination. Whoever needs to know, knows” he added.
His statements were taken by observers as a confirmation of the role played by Israel played in the bombing.
(ST)