All of the usual caveats apply here - either there’s some Stalingrad-esque fighting going on here or these numbers are hopelessly exaggerated.
Rebels from Sudan’s remote western Darfur region said on Monday they had killed more than 1,000 government troops and militias who attacked a rebel stronghold town on the border with Chad.
| That's some pretty big piles of rotting meat... |
"For the last four days there has been fighting. There are 12,000 government forces. Until now over 1,000 government troops and militia on horses have been killed," said Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
| "Until now" starting from when? |
Captain al-Naim from the office of the Sudanese army spokesman in Khartoum said: "As yet we have not received an appraisal report from the field so we cannot comment on these specific incidences but as soon as we do we will be releasing information."
Interesting that he didn’t deny it, is it possible these figures are accurate?
JEM’s Ibrahim said the rebels were using rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank weapons and had shot down three Apache helicopter gunships. The other rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), confirmed both movements were fighting together to defend the border town of Tina. JEM’s losses were "minimal", Ibrahim said, while SLA estimated about 100 of its troops were killed. Ibrahim declined to comment on the total number of rebels fighting, but a correspondent who recently went to the area estimated JEM’s troops at about 12,500. Ibrahim also said JEM would negotiate with Khartoum in the presence of impartial international observers if the government disarmed the militias and redistributed Sudan’s oil wealth and power to include the whole country.
| Rather than keeping the dough in Khartoum. The success of the SPLA has given impetus to the western rebels... |
Sudan’s interior minister told Reuters last week Sudan was ready for renewed talks and had not set preconditions. JEM refused to join Chad-mediated talks between the SLA and Khartoum, saying the government was not serious about a deal. Ibrahim said Chad was biased against the rebels and was cooperating with Khartoum to attack rebel positions in Darfur. "We are accusing Chad of being involved. They are part of this attack now," he said, but added that if Chad stopped its involvement he would accept them as a mediator for talks. "This means I’m not going to Chad now. But the United Nations asked Chad to mediate so we are willing to accept the U.N. call," Ibrahim said.
| Yeah, asking one of the parties to the fighting to mediate sounds like something the U.N. would do... |
Ibrahim said the Kenya talks, where a key wealth-sharing accord was signed earlier this month, would not secure a lasting peace in Sudan because they excluded Darfur. "The government must be ready to talk about sharing the power and resources with the whole country because what is going on in Kenya is between two minorities," he said. "They must redistribute what they have decided now in wealth. We will not stop our war unless we get our rights. There may be a temporary peace for the south but it is not peace for Sudan."
| Of course not. The place is too Islamic for that. |
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