‘Serious incident’ reported between Darfur truce monitors, Sudanese army

NDJAMENA, Dec 2 (AFP) — A “serious incident” has occurred between soldiers from the Sudanese army and members of a commission, led by Chad, monitoring a ceasefire in Sudan’s Darfur region, corroborating sources said.

A member of the Africa Union ceasefire commission questions a group of displaced women in a section of the Abu Shouk displaced camp in the outskirts of El-Fasher, Sudan.(AFP).

A ceasefire commission team had travelled Wednesday to Itou town, north of Nyala in southern Darfur, to investigate accusations made by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) that 65 civilians had been killed Tuesday in a bombing raid by the Sudanese air force.

According to the rebels’ military spokesman, Colonel Abdallah Abdel Kerim, the ceasefire commission team was attacked by troops from the Sudanese armed forces.

“They set their car on fire and injured a Chadian colonel,” Abdel Kerim told AFP by telephone.

A source close to the ceasefire commission confirmed that an “incident” had occurred but would not corroborate the rebels’ version of the story.

The source also confirmed that there had been a bombing raid on Itou on Tuesday, but did not give a casualty figure.

“Once again, the Sudanese government is not abiding by its commitments and continues to violate the ceasefire,” JEM’s Abdel Kerim said.

“We are seriously considering pulling out of negotiations in Abuja,” the Nigerian capital, where talks between the warring sides in Darfur are due to resume next week.

Some 70,000 people have been killed and more than 1.6 million displaced in Darfur since war broke out in the western part of Sudan in February last year, when rebels rose up against Khartoum, accusing the government of marginalising their region and its mainly black African population.

Khartoum’s response was to give a free rein to the Arab Janjaweed militia to crack down on the rebels and their backers, and the resulting war has provoked what the UN has described as the world’s current worst humanitarian crisis.

In April this year, the rebels and Khartoum signed a ceasefire in Ndjamena, but each side has accused the other of repeatedly breaching it.