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Sudan army 'loses' helicopter
25/02/2008 10:24 - (SA)
Khartoum - The Sudanese army announced on Monday that it had lost a helicopter in west Darfur, where it had been fighting rebel forces and the United Nation was focusing a massive peacekeeping operation.
An army spokesperson told the official SUNA news agency that the helicopter had landed in Geneina, capital of West Darfur state, on Sunday and its engine had caught fire destroying the aircraft.
"There have been no human losses," said the spokesperson. Defence minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Husein said his forces had destroyed nine rebel camps in recent military operations in West Darfur.
The army "totally controls" West Darfur including Salia, Jebel Sujuj, Sirba and Jebel Moon, Mohammed said. The rebels said dozens of people had been killed in a spate of air raids in the region by government forces in recent days.
On Sunday, officials from the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission said that the new bombings were endangering thousands of civilians in Darfur.
"UNAMID has received reports this morning of aerial bombings in the Jebel Moon area of western Darfur. We're gravely concerned for the safety of thousands of civilians who are in this area," the head of the mission, Rodolphe Adada, and the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Ameerah Haq, said in a joint statement.
Since the ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum five years ago, at least 200 000 people had died and more than two million fled their homes, according to the UN.
The Sudanese government insisted that no more than 9 000 people had died.
- AFP
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