four hours of fighting
Sudan’s army on Friday said it clashed with fighters from two rebel factions in the strife-torn Darfur region in a four-hour fight that left 21 people dead from both sides.
"Soldiers travelling on the road between Nyala and al-Fasher reached an area between Menwashi and Tiknir where they were blocked by members of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army of Minni Minnawi (SLA-Minnawi)," army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad told AFP.
"Fighting broke out in which 13 rebels were killed and we lost eight men."
Neither of the rebel groups, which have been fighting alongside each other since last month, nor the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID), were immediately able to confirm any casualties.
But a spokesman for the Abdelwahid Nur faction of the SLA (SLA-Abdelwahid) said there had been deadly fighting in the area of South Darfur.
"From 6:00 pm yesterday up to 12:00 pm today, we clashed with the Sudanese army in Jebra, 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Nyala," Nimir Ibrahim said by satellite phone from Darfur.
"Three of our people were killed and two were injured. The SAF (army) lost a number of people," he said, adding that the rebel group had taken 11 army vehicles.
Darfur security
JEM, the region’s most heavily armed rebel group, announced last month that the SLA-Abdelwahid had also joined the newly formed Darfuri rebel alliance, although a top SLA-Abdelwahid official said talks were still ongoing.
The head of the U.N. humanitarian mission in Sudan said on Thursday that the security situation in Darfur was improving.
The United Nations had previously said that at least 2,321 violent deaths were reported in Darfur in 2010.
And some diplomats have accused Sudan’s government of stepping up its offensive in the remote region while world attention has been focused on the independence referendum in south Sudan.
Last week saw a number of violent incidents in West Darfur.
On Saturday, gunmen killed two national security officials and a police officer in the town of Nertiti, according UNAMID.
Just days earlier three Bulgarian air crew on a helicopter carrying World Food Program supplies were abducted.
The violence in Darfur has died down from the mass killings reported in the early days of the conflict. But there have been sporadic clashes between the army and rebel forces, particularly since JEM walked out of floundering peace talks last year.
At least 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since the conflict erupted in 2003 when tribal fighters rose up against the central government, the U.N. says. Khartoum says 10,000 people have died in the conflict.