Khartoum claims liberation of rebel-held oil workers
KHARTOUM, May 23 (AFP) - The Sudanese government army has
claimed to have liberated five oil workers and destroyed rebel camps
in the centre of the country, press reports said Sunday.
Government troops backed by Popular Defence militias also
secured oil fields in Al Wihda state, the official El-Anbaa
newspaper said.
The oil workers, four Sudanese and a Chinese, were also freed in
Al Wihda state, when government troops burnt rebel camps there.
The paper quoted Lieutenant-Colonel Khalid Ahmed Hammad,
commander of Pariang military area as saying his troops "have swept
away all rebel camps that posed a threat to the oil fields",
including one at an airstrip he identified as "Nile Boy" used by the
Sudan Peoples Liberation Army to receive supplies from "foreign
organisations."
Army brigade commander Colonel Bekheit Mohamed Amir, stationed
at the Higleig oil centre in southwest Sudan, told the paper his men
had "scored major victories in areas away from the oil fields and
have made arrangements preventing inflitration by the rebels into
the oil fields".
The official newspaper added that the army and the Popular
Defence managed to "liberate" Telkuk area on the eastern border from
the opposition elements.
It quoted Kassala state Governor Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid as saying
the governpment troops and militiamen "are presently chasing the
rebels in the border strip".
The governor said government forces were "in full control" of
the situation which he described as calm, adding that the Khartoum
to Port Sudan highway "is fully secured" against attacks by the
opposition.
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Khartoum (dpa) - Sudanese government troops have destroyed rebel
camps at Paryang district in Southern Sudan and released four Sudanese
and a Chinese engineer the rebels have been holding hostage, the Alwan
daily reported Sunday.
The daily did not say when the battle took place.
It pointed out that the rebels had captured the hostages when they
infiltrated the oil field area in which they were working.
The paper quoted the returning soldiers from the battle zones as
saying that the oil field area had been well combed and that there was
no longer any threat from the rebels in the Paryang district.
According to Alwan this was the area where the rebels captured the
four Sudanese who had escorted a red cross team on a relief operation
and were eventually executed.
It added that the rebel camps in the district had been utterly
destroyed and a number of their arms and other military supplies
captured by a combined force of the army and popular defence force. |
