Twenty-six killed in west Sudan fighting-governor

KHARTOUM, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Twenty-six people were killed earlier this month during fighting when pro-government militias stormed into a town in western Sudan after the withdrawal of a rebel group, a regional governor said on Sunday.

But the rebel Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLM/A), which emerged as a fighting force in west Sudan in February, said 63 people were killed after its forces withdrew from Kutum, about 900 km (560 miles) west of Khartoum.

The SLA/M, comprising tribes of mainly African descent, accuses the government in Khartoum of excluding the arid region of Darfur from development and power. The government, which is in peace talks with a separate rebel movement in the south, has said it will not negotiate with the SLA/M.

“Twenty-six people were killed as a result of the fighting,” Osman Kibir, governor of Northern Darfur state, said, adding that the fighting took place around August 5-7.

He said the fighting followed the entry of pro-government militias into Kutum, shortly before the army arrived.

An SLA/M spokesman had earlier said 63 people from African tribes were killed by the militias from Arab tribes. “Ethnic cleansing was practised in the square in the middle of the town where 63 people were killed,” he said.

The governor said hundreds of people had fled the town because of the fighting, but many had since returned. Kibir said 200 were still lodged in nearby villages, while some 65 others were in government-run camps for internally displaced people.

Clashes between African farming communities and Arab cattle herders are frequent in Darfur and fuelled by rivalry over dwindling water resources and pasture caused by desertification.

The African tribes accuse Sudan’s Islamist government of supporting the Arab tribesmen or turning a blind eye.