15 killed in recent Darfur clashes despite ‘relative calm’

By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Dec 01, 2004 (AP) — Armed tribesmen attacked and looted four villages in recent days, killing at least 15 civilians near a Darfur town that has been at the center of the latest fighting in troubled western Sudan, a U.N. spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Sudan Liberation Army rebels in village of Khair Wajid.jpg, Darfur western Sudan.

An African Union team is investigating the attacks, carried out Saturday on villages around Kossa Hill, about 15 kilometers north of Tawilla, in North Darfur province, Radhia Achouri told reporters. A fifth village in the Tawilla area, Serefaya, was attacked Tuesday by armed tribesmen, Achouri said, but there were no details on casualties or damage.

She said the village attacks appeared to be retaliation for recent attacks by Sudan Liberation Army rebels on Tawilla.

That trouble aside, Achouri said the North Darfur security situation was “relatively calm.”

The Darfur conflict, considered by the United Nations the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis, started in February 2003 when two non-Arab African rebel groups took up arms to fight for more power and resources. The Sudanese government is accused of responding by backing Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, now accused of a murder, rape and arson campaign.

The rebellion and a devastating counterinsurgency have driven 1.8 million refugees from their homes. International agencies estimate that since March, disease, malnutrition and clashes among the displaced have killed more than 70,000 people.

Word of trouble flaring in Tawilla came less than two weeks after a Nov. 9 cease-fire accord, and the United Nations barred its personnel from working in the area.

Asked whether the latest raids were carried out by the Janjaweed militiamen, Achouri said it wasn’t clear who carried them out, but they were believed to be retaliation for a recent Sudan Liberation Army raid on Tawilla that drew international condemnation. That, she said, would suggest the attackers “could have an affiliation or certain sympathy toward the government of the Sudan.”

The Sudanese government has said at least 30 people were killed in a Nov. 22 rebel raid and the town’s hospital was destroyed. Arab militiamen, allegedly backed by the government, and non-Arab rebels clashed in the city. The government has denied accusations it stepped in a couple days later and bombed Tawilla, a move rebels claimed killed 25 SLA fighters and civilians.

There was no way to independently verify the claims.

Achouri also appealed to the government to drop entirely its threat to expel two British aid groups, Save the Children UK and Oxfam International.

Earlier this week, the government ordered the two groups to leave, accusing them of sending “signals of support” to rebels and interfering in Sudanese domestic matters. It later postponed the expulsion under intense diplomatic pressure.

“We do hope the government would reconsider its decision in a definite manner,” Achouri said, adding that the United Nations “badly needed” the two organizations’ help in Sudan.

Elsewhere in Darfur, a region the size of France, U.N. personnel are not venturing into some areas where intermittent fighting continues involving Arab militiamen, the government and members of the other key non-Arab rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement.

No details were immediately available on that fighting.