Clashes erupt in western Sudan despite truce: sources
By Nima Elbagir
KHARTOUM, May 5 (Reuters) – Fighting has erupted between Sudanese government forces and rebels in the west of the country despite a ceasefire signed last month, military and security sources said on Wednesday.
Neighbouring Chad said the fighting had spilled over the border and that its army clashed with Sudanese pro-government militia 25 km (15 miles) inside Chadian territory, with seven people killed in the violence.
The fighting breaks a truce aimed to enable urgent food and medical supplies to reach hundreds of thousands of people forced from their homes. Aid groups have issued warnings of a humanitarian crisis.
The sources in the impoverished region of Darfur, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that clashes on the Sudanese side of the border around Abu Gamra, 45 km (28 miles) north of the town of Kebkabiya, had involved forces led by Sudan’s army.
“We are still fighting factions of the rebels… We have to destroy them. These are our orders,” a senior Sudanese military source told Reuters, speaking by telephone from Darfur.
“This is the third day of fighting. Some of the rebels refuse to accept that they have to lay down their arms.”
Another Sudanese security source in Darfur confirmed that clashes with the rebels were continuing in the area around Abu Gamra. He said they involved Sudanese regular forces and an irregular group of local fighters commanded by the army.
A spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), one of the two rebel forces in the area, had no immediate comment.
Rebels in Darfur have accused the government of breaking the ceasefire in the past and blamed some fighting on pro-government Arab militia, called Janjaweed. They say the militia, dubbed outlaws by the government, have been armed by Khartoum.
INCURSIONS INTO CHAD
Emmanuel Nadingar, acting defence minister in Chad, said the Janjaweed had attacked civilians inside Chad early on Wednesday, killing six of them before being chased back over the border.
“Our forces clashed with the Janjaweed. We lost a commandant… The Chadian government strongly condemns this clash,” Nadingar said.
The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) says the regional conflict has forced more than one million people from their homes in Darfur and caused 100,000 Sudanese refugees to cross the border into Chad.
“This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with so many people in the most belligerent way being chased from their homes,” WFP Executive Director James Morris said.
“The general food situation is so bad that we are afraid there will be a famine. If international aid does not start on a large scale, there will be a famine,” said Stefan Pleger, a logistical coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres in Darfur.
Khartoum and two rebel factions signed a truce on April 8 to allow urgent aid to get through, but aid workers say they face a race against time to deliver supplies before rains start later this month, making many roads unusable.
Rebels took up arms against the Khartoum government in February 2003, demanding a fairer share of power and Sudan’s resources. The western conflict has raged as the government has moved closer to ending more than two decades of civil war in the south of the country.
(Additional reporting by Betel Miarom in N’Djamena, Shasta Darlington in Rome and Francois Murphy in Vienna)