Chad says Sudan-backed rebels have breached recent accord

CHAD: CHAD HAS accused Sudan-backed rebels of launching a fresh offensive yesterday, less than a month after the two countries signed a non-aggression pact, writes Rob Crilly in Khartoum.

Yesterday's skirmishes were the latest round of violence between two countries using rebel movements to fight a proxy war which has plunged Sudan's western region of Darfur into anarchy.

The Chadian defence ministry said mercenaries crossed the border "under orders from the Sudanese regime to attack the locality of Ade".

"Government forces have pushed back the enemy who are on the run," it added, without giving more details.

Darfuri rebels said they believed Sudanese soldiers and Janjaweed had crossed the border.

Dr Tahir Elfaki, a spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement, said: "The Sudanese army with Janjaweed supported Chadian rebels and they were fighting the Chadian army today."

Sudan's armed forces denied any role in the attack on Ade by Chad's rebel National Alliance, which said its fighters struck from inside Chadian territory without crossing the border.

A European force with an Irish commander has begun deploying on the Chadian side of the border to protect refugees from Darfur. However, it did not intervene yesterday. Some 400 Irish troops have been promised for the mission.

A spokesman for EUfor said: "The fighting is between rebels and the Chadian army, so there is nothing we can say about it."

Darfur's five-year-old conflict has been shaped by Sudan and Chad's rivalry. Each has attempted to bring down the other's governments. Each has supported rebel movements, pouring cash and guns into the border regions.

Chadian rebels swarmed into the capital N'Djamena in February and were repelled only with help from the Darfuri Jem rebel group. Many of its fighters remain in Chad as they wait for an expected second push by Chadian rebels.

However, last month in Dakar, the Sudanese and Chadian governments agreed not to allow their territories to be used by rebels hostile to the neighbours.

"President Bashir has not changed and continues to try to destroy Chad," Nouradine Delwa Kassire Coumakoye, the Chadian prime minister, told foreign ambassadors in N'Djamena. "We call on the international community to bear witness that, despite the Dakar accord, he is attacking us again today."

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times