New rebel group threatens aid workers in Sudan’s Darfur

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Oct 23, 2004 (UPI) — A rebel faction in the troubled Darfur region in Sudan Saturday threatened to target international humanitarian workers and African observers in the area.

A Sudanese government news website [SMC] said the National Movement for Reform and Development, which it described as the armed wing of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement in Darfur, is threatening to target the aid workers and African observers to protest their absence from the peace talks with the Khartoum government.

The movement’s spokesman, Mohammad Abdul Rahman Hassan, was quoted saying the international workers and African observers would remain targets of attacks as long as his group continued to be distanced from the peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

He said his group had contacted the head of the Organization of African Unity demanding its participation in the negotiations.

The Justice and Equality Movement accuses the Sudanese government of supporting splinter rebel groups.