Sudan army base attack 'kills 63'

Twenty Sudanese soldiers and 43 Darfur rebels have been killed in clashes at a Sudanese army base close to the Chadian border, the army said. 
Rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) attacked the base in Umm Baru on Sunday, its second raid on a military camp in just over a week. The joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force, Unamid, earlier said the rebels had overrun the army base. But a pokesman later said the army had control of the town. "They did make a push for it, but they did not overrun the post. Put it down to the fog of war," Unamid Information Director Kemal Saiki said on Monday, without explaining the conflicting reports. He said around 350 civilians and 100 unarmed Sudanese soldiers had sought refuge in a nearby Unamid camp during the clashes. An army spokesman said Sudanese forces had "counted 20 martyrs and 31 injured" in Sunday's clashes. He also said 43 Jem rebels were killed and 54 wounded. Rebel spokesman Suleiman Sandal confirmed the killings, without giving an exact toll: "We have some people who died, I cannot say the opposite," he told AFP news agency. Last week, Jem seized Sudan's army base at Kornoi, about 50km (30 miles) from Chad's border. The governments in Khartoum and N'Djamena accuse each other of backing rebel forces inside their respective territories. The attack on the base at Umm Baru, some 100km (60 miles) from the frontier with Chad, comes as a fresh round of peace talks between Sudan and Jem is due to begin on Wednesday in Doha, Qatar. The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have died in a six-year conflict in Sudan's Darfur region and more than two million more have been displaced.