KHARTOUM, 10 October 2007 — A Sudanese Army’s air and ground assault killed at least 45 people in the Darfur town of Muhajiriya, where bodies littered the streets amid burned out buildings, rebels who control the area said yesterday. “Until now the number of dead civilians are at least 40, with 80 missing and a large number of injured,” the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) said in a statement sent to Reuters.
The SLA faction led by Minni Arcua Minnawi was the only one of three rebel negotiating groups to sign a May 2006 peace deal with Khartoum and became part of the government. “Bodies are still lying around the town as this statement is written,” the statement by SLA Minnawi’s military spokesman Mohamed Hamid Dirbeen said.
“Some of the victims looked like they had been executed,” it said of the attack on Monday. AU force commander Martin Luther Agwai, who will also command a 26,000-strong joint UN-AU force due to take over from the AU, earlier confirmed a government air attack. “Yesterday ... I was informed that there was some bombing and military activity in the area of Muhajiriya,” he said of the raid which is a violation of a UN Security Council resolution that banned Khartoum from offensive flying.
Agwai said civilians converged on the nearby AU base for safety. His troops treated about two dozen injured civilians and combatants but did not allow them to enter the base. Reports from the town said the market and many houses were burnt and a number of civilians and rebels had been killed after army vehicles tore through on Monday.
