Sudanese Media Centre says rebels murdered 11 students

KHARTOUM, Nov 6 (AFP) – Sudan’s semi-government press service claimed on Saturday that Darfur rebels had murdered 11 students whom they had abducted in Jebel Marra earlier.

There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Quoting what it described as “reliable sources”, the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) said the students were liquidated on Thursday night by a so-called commander Abul Qassim on the orders of Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) chief Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nur.

According to the Khartoum-based centre, the families of the
victims called on the international community to put pressure on the rebels to stop “grave violations against civilians not related to the parties of the conflict.”

SMC on Friday reported that Darfur rebels abducted 10 children from a Khalwa (Koranic school). It was not clear whether they were the same students whom the centre claimed were murdered on Thursday night.

A rebellion erupted in February last year in the Darfur region in west Sudan and thousands of people have since died. Some 1.4 million people have been forced from their homes in what the United Nations says is the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis.

Aid agencies and Western officials have largely blamed
government troops and allied Arab militia for the killings, mass rape and other human rights abuses.