Sarkozy condemns Sudan

2008-03-08 12:38

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned on Friday what he called the "deliberate and disproportionate" use of force by Sudan in the killing of a French soldier serving with European Union forces in Chad.

France's defence ministry said that a body found by Sudanese authorities near the Chad border was identified by French officials in Khartoum as that of a special forces sergeant who went missing after a clash with Sudanese troops on Monday.

The soldier was killed and another was wounded after they accidentally crossed from Chad into Sudan, in a remote region near the Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic frontiers. The wounded man rejoined EU forces.

The death was the first fatal casualty in the EU military force which is still being deployed in eastern Chad. More than half of its members are being provided by France.

French presidential spokesperson David Martinon said Sarkozy had asked Sudan "to take all necessary measures" to prevent a repeat of the incident.

Full clarification requested

He said Sarkozy condemned "with all possible firmness the deliberate and disproportionate use of force" by Sudanese troops against the EU force and "requested full clarification of the circumstances of this tragedy".

French and EU officials had previously apologised for the fact that the EU patrol had crossed the border into Sudan.

Martinon said the European security force in Chad (Eufor) was conducting a "humanitarian protection mission to help the refugee population of Darfur and the displaced Chadian population".

The defence ministry in Paris said the soldiers who strayed across the border encountered a Sudanese checkpoint and quickly declared their identity, but were fired on without warning.

Sudan, however, said that a military jeep that entered from Chad was carrying six French soldiers who opened fire on a Sudanese army position.

It says five civilians were killed and two Sudanese soldiers and four civilians were wounded in the clash.

Senegal sets up peace deal

The 3 700-strong Eufor mission being deployed in eastern Chad has a United Nations mandate to protect refugees displaced by violence in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region.

But there have been concerns that the mission risks being sucked into a confrontation between Chad and Sudan.

The Chadian and Sudanese governments have accused each other of backing hostile insurgents and fomenting conflict on their common border and in Darfur, where political and ethnic violence has killed some 200 000 people since 2003.

Earlier, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said in Paris the leaders of Chad and Sudan were ready to sign a peace agreement in Dakar next week, ahead of an Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit there.

Talks

Wade will host talks between Chadian President Idriss Deby and Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir to defuse the conflict between the two countries and help bring peace to the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would sit in on the talks between Deby and al-Bashir in Dakar next week, the United Nations said in New York.

Deby and al-Bashir have met before to try to resolve the differences between them, which have brought the neighbours close to all-out war on a number of occasions.

But a string of past non-aggression pacts and pledges between then, brokered mostly by Libya but also by Saudi Arabia, have collapsed as fresh violence flares on their border.

- Reuters