Africa - Sudan - Eng

["Nadia & Giovanni" <nadia.joe@tiscalinet.it>]

News Article by REUTERS posted on November 14, 2000 at 15:51:29: EST (-5
GMT)

Sudan rebels accuse govt of "slaughter" in east

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Sudanese rebels Tuesday accused the
government of carrying out widespread reprisals against
suspected rebel sympathizers in eastern Sudan after a major
battle last week.

A statement from the main rebel group, the Sudan People's
Liberation Army (SPLA), said government forces had embarked on
a "mass killing" of black Africans around the town of Kassala.

Rebels from the umbrella National Democratic Alliance
(NDA), which includes the SPLA, last Wednesday said it had
captured Kassala, close to the Eritrean border, but said its
forces withdrew a day later.

The government said 130 people were killed in fighting for
control of the town, and Sunday it said it was launching an
investigation into the rebel attack.

Rebels have fought Sudan's Islamist government for 17 years
for autonomy for the mainly Christian and animist black African
south from the Arabized north.

"Reports reaching us from eastern Sudan indicate that the
National Islamic Front regime has embarked on mass killing of
people from southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains and black people
from western Sudan," SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said in the
statement released in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

"As of now, hundreds of them have already been killed,
while other reports put the number slaughtered in the
thousands," the statement added.

There was no immediate comment from the government.




__________________________________________________
"Call to me
    and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things
       which you
           have not known." - Jeremiah 33:3