Sudan: Rebel group accuse gov’t of bombing town

(SomaliNet) Sudan’s Darfur rebel group on Monday accused the Sudanese army of bombing a village in the north of the province, and also claimed to have repelled the attack and brought down a military helicopter.

\"The Sudanese army attacked on Monday from 3pm in the region of the village of Haskanita, in the north of Darfur,\" Mahjub Hussein, the spokesperson for the Sudan Liberation Army, told reporters when contacted by telephone in Libya.

\"We have beat back the attack and brought down an army combat helicopter,\" said Hussein, whose rebel movement did not sign the Darfur peace accord drafted in Nigeria last year.

\"There are victims and damage on both sides,\" he added, without providing any figures of the casualties.

Fighting continues between the rebels and some elements of the army still in the area, he said.

Sudanese officials were not immediately available to comment on the rebels\' claims.

Reports of the attack come days after United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebel factions are set to resume in Libya on October 27.

A peace agreement for Darfur was hammered out in the Nigerian capital of Abuja in May 2006, but it was only signed by one rebel group and the Khartoum government.

According to UN estimates, more than 200 000 people have died and two million have been displaced in Darfur as a result of the combined effect of war and famine since the Darfur conflict erupted more than four years ago. - Sapa-AFP