Darfur rebels down helicopters
22/12/2006 17:51 - (SA)
Cairo - Rebels in Sudan's western Darfur region said on Friday that they had downed two helicopters and killed 13 Sudanese officers.
They also denied that 200 members of their movement had died in a government attack.
"The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and its allies categorically deny information put out by the Sudanese army on Thursday," said the rebel movement in a statement received by AFP in Cairo, Egypt.
The group said the "government forces and Janjaweed militiamen had suffered heavy losses and fled towards the town of Kutum, leaving several dead behind them - including 13 officers of different ranks".
The Sudanese army said on Thursday that it had killed 200 rebels when it repulsed a massive rebel attack on Kutum in northern Darfur on Wednesday.
The army said four of its soldiers had been killed and 20 wounded in the attack.
Friday's rebel statement also said that the SLM/A had "shot down two military helicopters, destroyed seven military vehicles and seized 13 cars containing military equipment".
Efforts to agree on peace
The group said that in making its claims, Khartoum wanted to "disguise the series of defeats suffered recently by government forces and the Janjaweed" proxy militia.
The SLM/A said six of its members had been killed in the Kutum operation and 17 wounded.
The group belongs to the National Redemption Front (NRF), a coalition created by movements that did not sign the Abuja accord in Nigeria in May.
The accord is aimed at ending the conflict in Darfur, where the United Nations says at least 200 000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine in four years.
Wednesday's fighting came amid intensified efforts to reach an agreement on the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur as Washington warned that Khartoum had until year's end to accept it or face coercive action.
The conflict erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels launched an uprising that was fiercely repressed by government troops and its allied Janjaweed militia.
A peace deal between the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction from the Sudan Liberation Movement was signed in the Nigerian capital in May.
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