KHARTOUM, 24 November 2004 — Sudan said yesterday clashes with rebels in its Darfur region had killed more than 30 policemen, and denied accusations from aid workers that government planes had bombed a town captured by the rebels.

Rebels attacked and seized the town of Tawilla in North Darfur state on Monday, and officials said fighting was continuing as police and army struggled to regain control over the town, where about 30,000 refugees are encamped.

The Save the Children UK organization said about 30 of its workers were forced to flee on foot when a bomb landed about 50 meters from one of its feeding centers in the town.

Rebel commanders in North Darfur also said the town had been bombed, but Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail denied this.

“There are clear instructions to the army that they should not use any bombing. There is no bombing,” he said. But he added helicopter gunships may have been used.

Sudan’s security chief has said rebels have used villages in Darfur as human shields attracting government bombardment throughout their uprising.

After years of skirmishes between Arab nomads and mostly non-Arab farmers over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels took up arms early last year accusing the government of neglect and of arming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages. Khartoum denies the charge.

The United Nations says the violence has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 1.6 million people forced from their homes in the remote western area.

Saying the rebels had killed more than 30 policemen over the past two days, Ismail lamented the silence of the international community in the face of what he described as the rebels’ violations of a shaky cease-fire signed in April. He said the government had the right to self-defense.

“It is clear that the principle of self-defense is the defense of civilians, and the possessions lost by the civilians and also the defense of governmental organizations who have been attacked,” the minister said.

He accused unspecified aid groups of siding with the rebels by not criticizing their attacks.

The United Nations has threatened Sudan with possible sanctions if it fails to stop the violence in Darfur.

The EU’s Dutch presidency said yesterday it believes the Sudanese government is unable to resolve the conflict in Darfur and called on the international community to act to find a solution.

“I have been several times to Sudan, I know the authorities there and I know very well that the regime in place cannot resolve this conflict,” said Dutch Cooperation and Development Minister Agnes van Ardenne.

“We need other bodies to intervene to bring .. other visions and thereby to contribute to a solution to the problems on the ground,” she told reporters after talks with her EU counterparts in Brussels.

UAE Extradites Sudan Dissident

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates extradited a dissident Sudanese Army officer to Khartoum yesterday despite appeals from human rights watchdogs that his life might be in danger, a lawyer said.

Security personnel smuggled Brig. Abdel Aziz Khalid out of a back entrance to the airport, avoiding journalists and a crowd of several hundred supporters who had turned out to welcome him, former Attorney General Omar Abdel Atti said.