Heavy fighting in southern Darfur has killed scores of rebels and government forces over the past week, and the Sudanese air force has bombed several villages, rebels and international observers in Darfur reported.
The clashes began Aug. 1 when a coalition of rebels, including members of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), captured the strategic town of Adila, where Sudanese troops were stationed to protect the only railway linking Darfur to Sudan's capital, Khartoum, rebels said.
The Sudanese army and its allied janjaweed militias "were summarily defeated, leaving behind heavy weapons and ammunition," JEM said in a statement.
PHOTO: AFP
The group said the offensive was led by Abdelazziz Ushar, a Darfur field commander previously fighting a separate rebellion in eastern Sudan.
A senior international observer in Darfur said on Thursday that Sudanese forces had recaptured Adila, located near South Darfur's border with the neighboring region of Khordofan, but reported clashes were ongoing.
"It seems over 100 [Sudanese] soldiers or janjaweed have been killed," the official said on the telephone.
At least 10 rebels were killed and 15 injured, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Rebels said they launched the offensive because the janjaweed were burning villages in the area.
The African Union mission in Darfur confirmed there had been heavy fighting, but said it had no further details.
Rebels and international observers said the fighters seized more than 50 government vehicles and some heavy armaments during the offensive.
Meanwhile, Sudan's air force bombed at least four villages in the area this week, observers and rebels said, but there were no reports of casualties because many of the civilians have fled.
One of JEM's leaders said his group shot down a government MIG-29 fighter jet on Wednesday that was participating in the bombings, a claim denied by the government and disputed by other rebels.
Abdullahi el-Tom said the aircraft's wreckage had been found 4.5km south of Adila, but the pilot had not been located.
Rebels from a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement fighting alongside JEM told international observers the jet crashed because of a mechanical problem.
Army spokesman General Osman Mohamed al-Agbash denied that rebels had downed a government jet, but indicated the military had faced heavy fighting in Adila.
"JEM wants to tell the international community that the army has used air bombing in [the] recapturing of Adila," the Sudan Media Center, a news service deemed close to the government, quoted al-Agbash as saying.
There was no comment on military casualties.
Military flights are banned over Darfur by several UN resolutions and peace agreements, and Sudanese authorities routinely deny conducting air raids.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visited Darfur last month and said the region was largely pacified. But the UN mission in Sudan said there have been clashes between rebels and the government in northern Darfur in recent days.
The heavy fighting in Adila came as the UN and African Union sponsored a Darfur rebel conference in Arusha, Tanzania, to relaunch talks with the government after a peace agreement in May last year between Khartoum and one rebel faction proved largely ineffective.
The UN Security Council on Thursday welcomed "the substantial progress made" at last week's conference and called on all parties "to move from pre-negotiations to negotiations as soon as possible."
The council also called on the parties "to demonstrate their commitment to the political process through concrete actions, in particular cessation of hostilities."
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
‘TOXIC CLIMATE’: ‘I don’t really recognize Labour anymore... The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense,’ a protester said Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched through central London to protest against the far right, weeks ahead of local elections and six months after Britain saw one of its largest far-right demonstrations. Organized by hundreds of civic groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, Saturday’s Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest in UK history to counter right-wing extremism. A separate pro-Palestinian march had also converged with the main rally. While organizers claimed 500,000 had turned out in total, the police gave a figure of about 50,000. Protesters carrying placards with slogans such as
RSS