SLM-MM commanders killed in North Darfur

Members of the Rapid Support Forces reportedly killed field commanders of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Minni Minawi (SLM-MM) in Um Baru on Thursday.

Lt. Col. Adam Mohamed Saleh, the spokesman for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, told the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) on Sunday that the paramilitaries managed to hunt down and kill commanders Khatir Shatta Jallab and Abdallah Bakheet Diyar, east of Furawiya in Um Baru.

He said that after their defeat in Ein Siro in Kutum, the rebels were heading to Libya. The militia forces seized two four-wheel drive vehicles the commanders were travelling in. Five rebel combatants were captured.

The spokesman added that his forces in Kutum killed Commander Jumaa Jinnu and a number of his rebel fighters in Khazan Kurbiya.

The SLM-MM acknowledged the killing of Jallab, responsible for the movement’s logistics, and finance controller Diyar, but contradicted the version of the RSF.

“Exactly the opposite happened,” Mohamed Hassan Haroun, the spokesman for the SLM-MM told Radio Dabanga. “The government forces killed them in a cowardly way. They paid a few janjaweed in the area to ambush the rebel group and kill the commanders.”