KHARTOUM - Hundreds of people may have been killed in the heaviest fighting
between northern Sudanese forces and their former southern rebel foes since they
signed a peace deal last year, a top southern officer said on Thursday.
Thousands of refugees, among some 90,000 Chadians forced from
their homes in a new cycle of ethnic violence that has spilled over from
Sudan's neighboring Darfur province are setting up homes in this camp
under the care of the United Nations refugee agency at eastern Goz Beida,
Chad Nov. 30, 2006. [AP]
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In Nigeria's capital Abuja, the
African Union decided to extend for six months the mandate of its peacekeeping
force in Sudan's western Darfur region, where a separate conflict has killed an
estimated 200,000 people since early 2003.
In the southern town of Malakal, terrified civilians reported looting and
dead bodies in the streets after three days of clashes, and UN officials in
New York said 240 civilian personnel had been temporarily evacuated from the
town.
"More than hundreds have been lost. The Sudan army
sustained very heavy casualties and civilians were caught in the crossfire,"
Elias Waya Nyipuocs, a senior officer in the former southern rebel Sudan
People's Liberation Army, told Reuters.
