CAIRO, (Islamweb & News Agencies) -South Sudanese rebels claimed Saturday to have captured a large Nile steamer and three army patrol motor boats heading to an oil-rich region in central Sudan, taking a number of prisoners of war.
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) spokesman Yasser Arman told AFP that the steamer, which he said belonged to an oil company working in cooperation with the government, had been captured on Wednesday on the White Nile. (Read map caption below)
Arman warned by telephone from his Asmara base it was "high time" for oil companies to pull out from Sudan and repeated threats that rebel operations would continue against them in oil-producing areas.
No one was killed in the operation, but those on board the four boats were taken prisoner, he said, without providing figures.
The steamer was heading upstream towards Wang Kai town in oil-rich Unity state in central Sudan and the operation was carried out by commander Michael Top, who the SPLA spokesman said had recently defected from government ranks.
"This operation comes as part of our military plan to tighten the grip on the oil companies and the Sudanese regular forces who protect them, whether on river or land," Arman said.
The southern-based mainly animist rebels have been fighting a civil war against successive against a backdrop of localised fighting over resources.
The SPLA accuses Khartoum of using oil revenues to wage war against the southern separatists. The government has been exporting oil since the end of August 1999 with the help of Chinese, Malaysian, Canadian, Swedish and other companies.
The rebels claimed their first raid on the oilfields earlier this month, but both Khartoum and a Canadian oil company working there denied that any damage had been done.
Arman gave more details of the raid on Saturday, claiming the SPLA special unit had succeeded in destroying the main electricity power supply in Higlieg as well as three oil storage tanks, a helicopter gunship and airport infrastructure.
He said dozens were wounded and an unspecified number killed in the August 5 attack, quoting intelligence reports from sources inside Higlieg and Bantio, the capital of Sudan's oil-rich Unity state.
The southern-based rebels specifically warned oil companies and their personnel in June to withdraw ahead of an offensive on the oil-rich Unity state, amid a series of rebel advances earlier this year.
MAP CAPTION:
Sudan is the largest and one of the most diverse countries in Africa, home to deserts, mountain ranges, swamps and rain forests. Apart from an 11-year period of peace it has been torn by civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the Animist south since independence in 1956.