Sudan beefs up control of borders with Libya

October 24, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan is tightening control of its borders with Libya to prevent leakage of weapons, a local newspaper has reported, as the country’s officials contradicted each other on whether Libyan weapons had already entered the western region of Darfur.

According to the Khartoum-based daily Al-Sahafah, officials of the National Congress Party (NCP) had revealed that new measures were being introduced along the borders with Libya in order to block entry of weapons.

Sudan closed its 383 kilometers borders with Libya in early July 2010 after Tripoli provided sanctuary to Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

However, Sudan re-opened the borders in February this year to evacuate Sudanese citizens from Libya as the revolution-turned-armed conflict against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi escalated.

It later emerged that Sudan was also providing covert support to Libyan rebels who succeeded in ending more than four decades of Gaddafi’s one-man rule in August. Gaddafi himself was captured and killed last week.

But the surprise came when Khalil Ibrahim announced he had managed to return to Darfur after eluding attempts by Sudanese intelligence agents to apprehend him.

The Sudanese government, which reluctantly acknowledged Khalil’s presence in the region, claimed that JEM had brought with it as many as 100 truckloads of weapons across the border within the past two weeks, as stated by Sudan’s ambassador to the UN Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman earlier this month.

“We cannot exclude the possibility that some weapons have crossed into Darfur from Libya,” Osman told AFP. “We are very much concerned about it.”

Even the UN envoy to Libya, Ian Martin, said that there is “very serious concern” that weapons, ranging from shoulder-fired missiles to machine guns and ammunition, may have crossed Libya’s borders into neighboring countries,

Conversely, the spokesman of the Sudanese army (SAF), Col Al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad, on Monday strongly dismissed claims that weapons had entered Darfur from Libya.

In stark contrast with the account given by his country’s UN envoy, Sa’ad said that reports about the spread of arms from Libya into Darfur were “unconfirmed” and lacking in evidence, as quoted by Al-Sahafah newspaper on Monday.

“I do not believe weapons could spread to the country considering the army’s presence and enforcement of its control,” he said.

The army’s spokesman assertions were also echoed by the NCP’s deputy media secretary, Khalid Youssef, who told reporters in Khartoum on Monday that his party “excludes the possibility of any weapons entering the country through the borders with Libya.”

“So far we say no weapons had leaked into this area and there are arrangements on the borders to prevent any entry of arms into the country,” he said.

Sudan’s Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha said during a visit to Libya last month that no weapons could have crossed from Libya into Sudanese territories.

(ST)