News Article by AFP posted on May 29, 2003 at 16:56:55: EST (-5 GMT)
New rebel group says it killed 500 Sudanese troops
CAIRO, May 29 (AFP) -- Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) rebels killed 500 Sudanese government troops and took 300 of them prisoner during fighting Thursday in western Sudan's North Darfur State, a rebel leader said.
"We totally destroyed an infantry batallion moving in the area and we caused 500 deaths and took 300 prisoners during an ambush Thursday north of the city of Kutum," SLM secretary general Mani Arkoi Minawi told AFP.
There was no immediate comment from the Sudanese government authorities and no way to independently verify the claim.
"The attacks began at 1030 am (0730 GMT) and fighting continued until 1345 pm (1045 GMT)," he said, adding he was speaking from North Darfur State.
The SLM forces destroyed seven four-wheel drive vehicles and three trucks, Minawi added.
"Sudan's minister of education, Ahmed Babikir Nahar, contacted us two days ago to communicate to us the government's will to negotiate," Minawi said.
He said the SLM had replied asking for "a halt to movements of government troops in the Darfur, as a precondition for negotiations and a sign of goodwill," but accused the government of failing to heed the request.
"On Wednesday, their soldiers killed four civilians, burned four villages and launched aerial bombing in the region," he charged.
The Sudan Liberation Army/Movement has claimed a number of attacks in the Darfur region since it surfaced for the first time in February.
But the government has refused to acknowledge any political motivation for unrest in the states of North, South and West Darfur, blaming it instead on "armed criminal gangs and outlaws," who it says are aided by tribes from neighboring Chad.
Sudanese authorities have also accused the southern separatist Sudan People's Liberation Army of helping the "outlaws" in the Darfur region, a charge the SPLA denies.
The SLA, which first emerged in late February under the label of the Front for the Liberation of Darfur, is not included in the framework of peace talks aimed at ending Khartoum's 20-year-old civil war with the SPLA.
It has never acknowledged any link with the SPLA, but called in mid-March for an "understanding" with other opposition forces fighting the Khartoum government.