SUDAN: Sixty killed in new Darfur clashes
published: Monday | May 22, 2006

Heavily armed members of the Sudanese Liberation Army sit on their vehicle in Susuwa, north Darfur province of Sudan, on May 15. - REUTERS

CAIRO, Egypt (AP):

A NEW surge of interethnic and militia violence has killed at least 60 people in separate attacks in Darfur over the past few days, the African Union and the United Nations said yesterday.

The killings came ahead of an expected visit by top U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi next Tuesday. A former envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq, Brahimi is due in Khartoum to push for the Government to accept a U.N. resolution voted last week that plans for U.N. peacekeepers to take over operations in this vast region of western Sudan, the U.N. said.

RECENT ATTACKS

Most of the recent attacks were launched by the so-called Janjaweed, a disparate group of Arab militiamen who are blamed for much of the atrocities in a conflict that has killed more than 180,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003.

The Janjaweed are allegedly backed by the Sudanese Government, which pledged to disarm them in the May 5 peace agreement signed in Abuja, Nigeria.