Sudan: South treating wounded Darfur rebels

Darfur rebels wounded in the latest fighting with Sudanese troops have gone to South Sudan for treatment, the army said Tuesday, as Khartoum pushes Juba to end alleged backing for rebels. Also Tuesday, the U.N. said in a report that six bombs that Sudan maintains were aimed at rebels in its own territory instead landed across the border inside South Sudan. The army and insurgents gave conflicting accounts of Monday’s fighting, which came while Sudanese negotiators at fragile peace talks in Addis Ababa turned down Juba’s proposal for settling oil fees and other critical issues by a U.N.-imposed deadline of Aug. 2. Khartoum said security was a key priority and issues such as Juba’s “support” for rebels need to be settled. In a statement carried by the official SUNA news agency, Sudanese army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said the government had killed more than 50 fighters of the Justice and Equality Movement and wounded a large number of others. The fighting erupted just inside South Kordofan state near southeastern Darfur. Saad said a “big number of vehicles were seen carrying the injured elements of the rebels for treatment in South Sudan.” JEM Tuesday denied that any of its fighters had been killed in the battles or that wounded had been moved across the undemarcated border. Rebel spokesman Gibril Adam Bilal said his forces had control of the Tabaldi oil field as well as the Karkade and Tabun areas since Monday evening. Sudan accuses South Sudan of working with the JEM and of backing insurgencies in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. The South denies supporting the rebels but suspected JEM fighters were seen alongside its troops during border fighting between Sudan and South Sudan in April. The JEM denies any presence in South Sudan, which accuses the north of backing rebels in the South as well. The U.N. has called on both sides to halt any such support under a May 2 Security Council resolution which ordered a cease-fire along the border. The resolution gave the two sides until Thursday of next week to settle critical issues, including a dispute over oil, unresolved after the South’s separation in July last year. U.N. observers who visited a site in the northern Bahr al-Ghazal state early Friday found six bomb craters 1.16 kilometers inside South Sudan’s territory, according to the internal report obtained by the Associated Press Tuesday. South Sudan officials told the U.N. team that a man who had been wounded in the bombing later died. The U.N. team said that the six bombs created small craters where they came down. In Monday’s fighting, army spokesman Saad said government troops repulsed the JEM at Karkade and another area, Um-Shuwaika, destroying 25 of its vehicles. He made no mention of fighting around an oil field but said the army lost “a number of martyrs” in the action with rebels whose goals were dictated “by foreign circles.” JEM claimed it had killed “tens” of government troops. South Sudan accused Khartoum Saturday of a new cross-border air raid and said in response it would negotiate only through AU mediators, not face-to-face. Sudan said it retaliated inside its own territory to an attempted JEM attack which Siddiq called a “stab in the back” by Juba.