The International Criminal Court prosecutor requested arrest warrants today for Darfur rebels for the first time, accusing them of storming an African Union camp and killing 12 peacekeepers.
Despite a ceasefire declared in Darfur by Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir last week, the army said its forces had killed 30 rebels while repelling an assault in North Darfur.
Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who also wants to put Bashir on trial over Darfur, said rebel attacks on peacekeepers last year were considered war crimes under the court's statute and vowed that they would not go unpunished.
"Attacking peacekeepers is a very serious crime," Mr Moreno-Ocampo said. "This means civilians have no protection."
Mr Moreno-Ocampo has made the request to the judges of the court, based at The Hague.
The Haskanita attack in September 2007, in which 8 peacekeepers were also wounded, was the bloodiest assault on peacekeepers since the Darfur conflict began in 2003.
The rebel commanders, whose names were not made public, attacked the peacekeeping camp without warning and overwhelmed the base, AU officials said. Ten peacekeepers were killed on the spot. Two died of their wounds.
The peacekeepers, now a joint AU-UN force, have been unable to end fighting that international experts say has killed 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million. There is no sign of a deal between Khartoum and the largely non-Arab Darfur rebels.
Reuters