EL-GENEINA, Sudan, 20 December 2005 — Chadian Army deserters who launched a failed offensive on a military base on Sunday have retreated over the border to Sudan’s remote west, Sudanese rebels said yesterday. A group of Chadian Army deserters launched an attack on the border town of Adre on Sunday, but were repulsed after heavy fighting claiming around 100 lives, the Chadian government said, holding Sudan responsible.
The clashes raised tensions in Sudan’s Darfur region, where Sudanese rebels have been fighting the central government for almost three years. No fighting was reported in Adre yesterday.
A commander in the Darfur rebel National Movement for Reform and Development (NMRD), which controls areas along the border with Chad, said his troops had witnessed the Chadian rebels retreat into Sudan on Sunday in cars.
“Some of them were moving in the direction of El-Geneina,” said Hassan Khamis, NMRD commander, referring to the main town in Darfur along the border.
A Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman denied any involvement in the Adre clashes and said it was not helpful for bilateral relations to exchange accusations through the media.
Sudanese Army sources reported sporadic fighting in recent days, crossing over the long, porous border between the countries, but said the Sudanese army was not involved.
Both Darfuri rebels and aid workers in the region have reported large troop movements over the past two weeks near the border, with reports of Chadian troops patrolling on the Sudanese side of the border.
A senior Sudanese official insisted yesterday his government had given no support whatsoever to Chadian rebels. “We have never supported and we will never support the Chadian rebels,” North Darfur Governor Osman Yusuf Kibir told reporters at the start of a conference on the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur in El-Fasher.
