Sudan army urges civilians to return to Darfur area

KHARTOUM — Sudan's military on Monday called on civilians displaced by two weeks of fighting in Darfur's Jebel Marra to return to their homes, claiming to have captured most of the area.

The rebels strongly denied the claim and urged the international community to intervene to protect civilians.

Clashes flared between insurgents and troops in Jebel Marra, a stronghold of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army led by Abdulwahid Nur (SLA-AW), on January 15 and tens of thousands of civilians are thought to have fled the fighting.

"The armed forces, announcing they have extended their control over the Jebel Marra area and have secured all roads and tracks and important sites, invite all citizens in the area to return to their villages," army spokesman Brigadier Ahmed Khalifa Al Shami said in a statement.

"The armed forces are still continuing their efforts in the area to complete the combing of the small remaining pockets," of Jebel Marra, the spokesman said.

But Abdulwahid Nur, head of the SLA-AW, denied his forces had lost control of the area.

"I will say that is not true at all, that is a lie," Nur told AFP by telephone from France. 

"Since January 25, they have been continuously attacking us from eight directions" in Jebel Marra, he said.

He called the fighting "a tragedy, with the silence of the international community". 

Access to Darfur is strictly limited by the government, making it almost impossible to independently verify accounts from both sides.

Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to have fled the latest clashes, which came after a period of relative calm following President Omar Al Bashir's extension of a ceasefire in the area in a New Year's Eve speech.

The military said in their statement they were responding to violations of the ceasefire, but the SLA-AW said troops tried to fight their way into the area.

The army's call for civilians to return came after the United Nations warned that civilians displaced by the fighting were facing dire humanitarian conditions.

"They are basically in need of everything," said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Marta Ruedas.

The surge in violence "has seen, as a result, the worst civilian displacement that we have seen in the UN in the past decade" in Jebel Marra, she said.

The UN has been unable to gain access to some of the areas worst affected in Jebel Marra, which straddles North, South and Central Darfur states, and has been unable to verify the number of people displaced into the surrounding areas.

Ethnic insurgents in the western Darfur region in 2003 mounted a rebellion against Bashir's Arab-dominated government over claims they were being marginalised.

Bashir unleashed a bloody counter-insurgency using militia, ground troops and jet bombers that saw him indicted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges in 2009, which he rejects.

Some 300,000 people have been killed the conflict and there are 2.5 million people in the region who have been displaced, according to the UN.