KHARTOUM, 5 May 2005 — Khartoum yesterday blamed the main Darfur rebel group for killing two Sudanese aid workers and kidnapping another in the east of the country, a charge the rebels denied. In a statement, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs expressed its “deep regret that the Sudan Liberation Movement and armed elements from the Rashidiya tribe attacked a team from the Sudanese Red Crescent in Kassala.” The Rashidiya are an eastern Arab tribe.
Two Sudanese aid workers were killed and one was kidnapped after their vehicle was attacked by gunmen in eastern Sudan near the Eritrean border on Sunday afternoon. One other aid worker was seriously injured in the attack. The Sudanese army said one of the attackers was a Darfuri and four others were Rashidiya.
Rebels from Darfur, which is in its third year of open revolt, have bases in the Eritrean capital, and Sudan has accused them of having training camps near the eastern border with Eritrea. But an SLM rebel spokesman denied involvement, saying the group had no troops in the east of Sudan or on the Eritrean side of the border.
“We as the SLM are in Darfur in the west. We are not in Kassala in the east,” said SLM spokesman Adam Ali Shogar. “Our policy is not to make any confrontations with any non-governmental organizations — we will cooperate with them.” The Darfur rebels launched an open revolt in early 2003. Rebel leaders have said the Darfur movements had forged links with smaller eastern rebel groups.
Sudanese President Omar Bashir said Tuesday that, despite improvement in the security and humanitarian situation in Darfur, peace negotiations are stumbling, largely due to “negative signals” from the UN Security Council.
“The previous period has witnessed several successful measures for containing the Darfur crisis that were mainly manifested in the voluntary return of considerable numbers of internally displaced persons to their villages, in controlling the health situation to make the region free of epidemics and in the remarkable improvement in the humanitarian situation as reflected in housing and feeding,” Bashir told the National Assembly.
“The direct and indirect talks, meanwhile, continued swinging between convening and adjourning due to the negative signals and unfair pressures embodied in recent UN Security Council resolutions, particularly 1591 and 1593, to which our people have reacted vigorously.”
