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| Africa: Horn |
| Ex-Sudan rebels free war prisoners |
| 2005-10-19 |
| A group of Sudanese soldiers that former southern rebels had held as prisoners of war left the eastern town of Kassala for Khartoum on Tuesday, the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported. The 177 POWs freed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement included four officers, non-commissioned officers and members of the Popular Defence Forces. The government in Khartoum enlisted thousands of mujahidin (holy warriors) to fight alongside regular forces against the mainly Christian and animist south during more than two decades of north-south conflict. The SPLM freed them in accordance with a January peace agreement that ended Africa's longest-running civil war, which left an estimated two million people dead and displaced four million. |
| Posted by:Fred |