Sudanese government forces launched a series of raids on western villages, killing at least 70 civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee, a rebel spokesman said Saturday. The attacks began shortly before noon Friday, when about 300 militia fighters assaulted Tarne, a village 930 miles west of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Hassan Mandela, a spokesman for the Sudanese Liberation Movement, told The Associated Press. Homes were burned, resisters were shot and thousands forced to flee, he said. Over the next few hours, the militia sacked five other nearby villages, Mandela said in a telephone interview from western Sudan. At least 70 people were killed in the attacks and more than 50,000 forced to flee to safer areas, he said. It was not possible to independently verify the information. Sudanese Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid said he was "not aware" of any raids.
Mandela said there were no rebels in the villages, which are in a part of the western Darfur region controlled by the government. But the residents of the villages were largely black African Muslims, the ethnic group from which the rebels draw the bulk of their fighters, he said. The government-backed militiamen were mostly Sudanese Arabs. |