Government forces and rebels clashed on Tuesday in southern Sudan’s Western Upper Nile Region, a rebel representative told AFP, three days after leaders of both sides held landmark talks aimed at ending their 19-year-old war.
Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA) representative Samson Kwaje said fighting was still raging in the region around the southern town of Tam after government troops backed by helicopter gunships launched a three-pronged offensive on the town on Friday.
The attacks were launched a day before President Omar al-Beshir of Sudan and SPLA leader John Garang met for the first time in Kampala and pledged to step up efforts to end a war that has claimed an estimated 1,5-million lives since it was launched in 1983.
On July 20 in Kenya, the two sides had announced they had made significant progress after five weeks of talks to resolve the war’s key causes, although no ceasefire was declared.
Beshir’s advisor on the peace process, Salah Eddin Atabani, told reporters on Sunday night that fighting appeared to have stopped following the landmark talks in Kampala.
But Kwaje denied on Tuesday that the fighting had totally subsided, blaming the continuing unrest on Khartoum.
”They attacked us in Tam at 9am. (Friday) and fighting went on until we withdrew at 4pm, but fighting is still raging in the surrounding areas,” he said.
”This is the contradiction of the Sudanese government: on the one hand the civilians are talking peace, but the military is trying to defeat the SPLA,” he said.
”Civilians who escaped to Bahr al Ghazal have told us that large numbers of people have been massacred,” he said.
”We are surprised,” said Kwaje. ”We thought there would be restraint on both sides.
”We will be forced to retaliate and the fighting is likely to escalate again,” he warned. – Sapa