Sudan army attacks Darfur partners in peace

KHARTOUM - Sudanese government troops and allied militia on Monday attacked a town belonging to the only Darfur rebel faction to sign a 2006 peace deal, the faction said.

"Government planes have attacked Muhajiriya, which belongs to us, and government forces and Janjaweed militia are fighting our forces," said Khalid Abakar, a senior representative from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).

Abakar is from the SLA faction led by Minni Arcua Minnawi, the only one of three rebel negotiating factions to sign a May 2006 peace deal with Khartoum. The movement then became part of the government and control Muhajiriya town in South Darfur.

"We consider this a very serious development," the head of Minnawi's office, Mohamed Bashir, told Reuters.

"Half of Muhajiriya is burnt down," he said adding, Minnawi would return to Khartoum from Darfur following the attack.

Rival rebel factions who did not sign the May 2006 deal also confirmed the attack on Muhajiriya, adding government troops were also amassing near Tine town, on the Chadian border, preparing to attack rebel-controlled areas in North Darfur.

Bashir said the assault was a continuation of the Sudanese army offensive in the former rebel town of Haskanita in southeast Darfur, which had been burnt to the ground and emptied of civilians.

On Monday a leading Darfur rebel said 105 people were killed in Haskanita, which the army occupied last week following a vicious attack, initially blamed on rebels, on African Union peacekeepers there.

Suleiman Jamous, a respected humanitarian coordinator for the Sudan Liberation Army, said the government and allied militia razed Haskanita over several days.

"Around 105 people killed is the last figure we have," Jamous told Reuters. "There are many others in the bush who may die of thirst -- they need water," he added.

Jamous, who across the border from Darfur in Abeche, Chad, said all the residents of villages surrounding Haskanita had fled too after seeing the town razed.


"EXAGGERATION"

The United Nations, which inspected the town for two hours on Saturday, confirmed it had been burnt to the ground but could not say by whom or whether there were any casualties.

U.N. officials said only the mosque and school were left standing and most of Haskanita's 7,000 population had fled.

Sudan's army said a fire, the cause of which was unclear, started in the market and spread to the rest of the town, and said the United Nations had exaggerated the damage.

"There was a fire but it was brought under control," an army spokesman said. "The United Nations have made this into something bigger than it is."

Growing tensions, which have been growing in the run-up to AU-U.N.-mediated peace talks in Libya scheduled for Oct 27, exploded on Sept. 29 when armed men in 30 vehicles descended upon an AU peacekeepers' base near Haskanita, destroying the base and killing 10 peacekeepers.

Haskanita had been a rebel-controlled town and AU officials had privately suspected breakaway rebel factions were behind the attack, the worst since the AU mission deployed in 2004. The AU said it was still investigating.

The AU asked the government to secure the area while they withdrew, leaving no international observers in the region beset by clashes between the army and rebels.

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) breakaway commander Bahar Idriss Abu Garda, said government militiamen had since looted the AU base and Haskanita, and were selling stolen goods in nearby town markets.