AU confirms Sudan bombed Darfur rebel areas

KHARTOUM, Jan 23 (Reuters) The African Union has confirmed Sudan's army bombed two villages in North Darfur, violating ceasefire agreements and jeopardising efforts to revive a stalled peace process.

Separately, the United Nations reported an assault on aid workers, saying 20 AU, UN and aid agency staff were arrested at a social gathering and five were beaten by police in Darfur, with some sustaining serious injuries. One UN staff member said she was sexually assaulted by police.

In the first independent confirmation of rebel reports that the government bombarded their positions in Anka and Korma on January. 16 and 19, the AU condemned the attacks.

''The (AU) ceasefire commission is once again calling on all parties to refrain from any activities that will jeopardize the peace process,'' the statement sent late yesterday said.

Rebels are trying to hold a conference in Darfur to unify their position ahead of a renewed push for peace talks. They want government guarantees that the conference will not be attacked, but the army has three times bombed rebel positions in the past two months, the AU says.

Sudan's armed forces spokesman denied all reports of bombing in the past two months.

Experts estimate some 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million forced from their homes in four years of rape, pillage and murder in Darfur, violence Washington calls genocide.

Khartoum denies genocide and says the Western media overplay the conflict. The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes in the region.

BEATEN Rebels also accused the government of bombing their positions in Ein Sirro on January. 20, killing 17.

The AU has not confirmed that bombing but a UN bulletin seen by Reuters today said it also had reports of bombing at Ein Sirro, which killed two civilians and a large number of cattle.

The U.N. bulletin also said it was investigating the arrest and assault on five of its staff and 15 others by police in South Darfur's state capital Nyala on January 19.

''The UN staff were beaten both with hands and with rifles,'' Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, said today. The staff were international, he added.

''One of our UN staff has made a complaint of a sexual assault against her,'' Cawardine later added.

An international aid worker last year working for Medecins Sans Frontieres was seriously sexually assaulted in Darfur.

The UN statement added: ''Several of the detained staff sustained serious injuries, some of which required treatment at the U.N. clinic in Nyala.'' All were subsequently released.

''The United Nations will also officially protest to the government of Sudan the assault of the staff by local police, in violation of basic principles of rule of law and due process,'' it said.

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