Sudan - Four Killed, Police Station Attacked In Darfur

Four people were killed when gunmen looted a market and set fire to a police station during several days of violence in Sudan's Darfur region, international peacekeepers said on Monday.

Mainly non-Arab rebels took up arms in Darfur in 2003, complaining the central government in Khartoum had neglected the remote western region.

Violence has since subsided from its peak, but law and order has collapsed in many parts of the vast territory and clashes have continued to erupt between rebels and government forces.

Gunmen surrounded a camp for displaced people in Kassab in North Darfur state, burnt down a police station and looted the main market, African Union/United Nations peacekeepers UNAMID said in a statement.

UNAMID said it had received reports that four people had been killed and six injured during the incident on Aug 1. Since then more looting and fighting between government forces and gunmen had taken place over several days in the Kassab camp as well as the nearby Kutum town and Fataborno camp.

UNAMID "requested the government investigate the reported attacks and abuses on civilians and the destruction and looting of equipment belonging to humanitarian agencies," it said.

Sudan's army said two soldiers were killed and two wounded when troops moved into Kutum to restore order, the state-linked Sudanese Media Centre said late on Sunday. It said the situation was now under control.

Sudan said on Wednesday gunmen had killed a local government official in Kutum.

The government signed a Qatar-brokered peace deal with small rebel groups a year ago but the main rebel groups have refused to join.

The International Criminal Court has indicted Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and issued an arrest warrant for Defence Minister Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein for war crimes in Darfur.