U.N. says west Sudan rebels release aid workers

(Adds details of clashes from paragraph 7)

CAIRO, June 6 (Reuters) – Rebels from conflict-torn Darfur in western Sudan released 16 U.N. and other aid workers on Sunday, a day after they had been kidnapped, the United Nations said in a statement.

“We are relieved to report that the 16 humanitarian aid workers, who had been detained by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), were released today,” said the statement released in Khartoum and sent to Reuters in Cairo.

The group, also called the SLA, is one of two main rebel groups in the remote region bordering Chad where nomadic Arab tribes have traditionally vied with African farming communities for scarce resources.

The SLA was not immediately available for a comment on Sunday. Earlier it said it took the workers for their own protection because they had wandered into rebel-held territory.

The U.N. statement said the workers had returned to their base in al-Fashir, the capital of Northern Darfur state.

Khartoum and two main rebel groups agreed a ceasefire in April, but both sides have accused the other of violations.

In the latest report of violence in the area, witnesses said that armed Arab gunmen, known as janjaweed, attacked their village of Ashma 21 km (13 miles) east of Nyala, the capital of Southern Darfur state.

Witnesses said rebels provided the villagers with weapons to fight back.

“They gave us guns and helped the others to escape and then withdrew,” one villager told Reuters by telephone. He said the attack happened on Saturday afternoon.

The villagers also said they heard bomb explosions from government planes flying overhead, although they said they did not see the aircraft. A government official denied any aerial bombardment.

Gadein Goudatallah, spokesman for the Southern Darfur state government, said he had no information about an attack around Ashma, which is in an area called Shiaria. But he said the rebels were active in the area.

“The violations by them (rebels) in Shiaria are numerous and we will present our reports to the international monitoring team,” he said.

Rebels were not immediately available for a comment.

Two U.N. bodies are sending monitors to the region, while the African Union has already deployed monitors.

The United Nations says fighting in Darfur, where a rebellion began last year, has displaced about one million people. U.N. officials have said the conflict has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.