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Sudan vows to fight back
10/04/2007 21:04 - (SA)
Khartoum - Sudan will respond firmly to what it said was an attack by Chadian army forces that killed 17 of its soldiers and military action is an option, said an army spokesperson on Tuesday.
Chad said it routed a major rebel attack launched from Sudan on Monday to destabilise its government, but Khartoum accused Chad's army of killing its troops.
"Sudan's response will be strong. We will consider all responses, political, diplomatic and military," said the Sudanese army spokesperson, who asked not to be named.
The accusations marked a deterioration in the volatile relations between the two central African neighbours, marred by violence spilling across the frontier of Sudan's Darfur region.
Chadian information minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said a convoy of 200 rebel vehicles from Sudan was defeated after attacking army positions in the border village of Aldjirema.
At least eight Chadian soldiers and numerous rebels were killed, he said.
'Calm rising regional tensions'
A Chadian presidency official in N'Djamena, who asked not to be identified, denied the army had crossed the border or clashed with Sudanese forces.
It is just two months since Chadian President Idriss Deby and Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir signed a non-aggression pact in the Libyan capital Tripoli in an effort to calm rising regional tensions.
The four-year war in Darfur, which has killed about 200 000 people, has driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into Chad and prompted the United Nations to study a peacekeeping force for the country's lawless east.
N'Djamena accuses Sudan of supporting Chadian rebels based in Darfur, while Sudanese Arab militia known as "Janjaweed" are raiding ever further into eastern Chad.
- Reuters
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