ADDIS ABABA, 28 January 2005 — About 100 people were killed in an air raid on a town in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region, a spokesman for the African Union said yesterday, citing reports from AU monitors on the ground.

“The AU office in Khartoum has confirmed that the attack took place on Wednesday night,” said the spokesman, Adam Thiam, at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, calling it the “most serious attack in recent months.”

A source close to the AU mission in Darfur said that according to the AU the attack happened at Shangel-Topayi, near Al-Fashir in North Darfur state.

Thiam said the raid was one of a number of violations of a shaky truce between Khartoum and Darfur’s two rebel factions and that the AU “fears the conflict in Darfur is likely to start again.”

“This is more than one very serious violation of the cease-fire because it is not an isolated act,” he said.

Thiam noted that pro-government Arab militias had been responsible for a serious attack on Jan. 16 that was followed by a raid by the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM). He declined to say who was responsible for Wednesday’s “bombardment” but noted that, to date, such attacks had come from the government side. The rebels have no air force.

Senior AU officials were currently in “very close consultations” with Sudanese authorities, who had pledged to stop overflights of Darfur villages as part of the truce, Thiam said.

Another AU official in Darfur said meanwhile that pro-government Janjaweed militia are suspected of recently attacking villages north of Nyala, South Darfur, killing about 100 people and forcing more than 9,000 to flee. “An investigation (into the incidents) by the African Union mission through its protection forces and Cease-Fire Commission members has started,” AU spokesman Justin Thundu told AFP by telephone from Al-Fashir.

“Patrols are in full swing to defuse the prevailing tensions in the affected areas,” he said.

“The janjaweed are suspected to have carried out the attacks but this has to be confirmed before a further statement is issued,” said Thundu, who was asked to comment on a UN report on last week’s attacks round Hamada, Juruf and Gemeiza villages north of Nyala. Hamada was reportedly almost entirely destroyed, up to 105 people killed and more than 9,000 people displaced.