CHAD:The border areas of eastern Chad where EU troops deployed last month remain calm despite reports that heavily armed rebels crossed over the border from Sudan earlier this week, a spokesman for the EU mission said last night.
"The situation as we know from our contacts on the ground is calm," Comdt Dan Harvey told The Irish Times from the mission's headquarters in Paris.
A Chadian government statement, read on national radio yesterday, claimed that Sudan had on Wednesday sent several heavily armed rebel columns into Chad.
Calling the attackers "mercenaries", the statement said the incursion took place at Moudeina on Chad's frontier with the Sudanese region of Darfur.
The EU mission, known as EUfor, has a UN mandate to protect civilians, including Darfuri refugees and displaced Chadians, sheltering in camps in Chad's eastern borderlands. The force began its much-delayed deployment last month following a failed rebel offensive on Chad's capital N'Djamena.
Members of the Irish army's elite Rangers wing were among those deployed as part of an initial entry force.
More than 400 Irish soldiers will eventually join troops from 14 participating member states to make up the 3,700-strong force.
There was no independent confirmation of a fresh rebel incursion.
Sudan rejected Chad's allegations of renewed rebel activity.
"This is nonsense. I can assure you this is nonsense," Sudan's Minister of State for Foreign Relations, Al-Samani al-Wasiyla, said.
"We have no [ Chadian] opposition inside Sudan. We closed our borders completely to these troops."
Observers noted the timing of the Chadian government's claims delivered as the leaders of Sudan and Chad met for peace talks in Senegal.
Sudan's president Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his Chadian counterpart Idriss Deby met under the mediation of the Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade on the sidelines of a summit of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Mr Wade has drawn up a peace agreement to be signed by Deby and Bashir in the hope it can help end hostilities between the two countries.
Chad's government regularly accuses Sudan of arming and supporting rebels seeking to oust Mr Deby.
It claims the rebels use areas within Sudan as a base from which to launch cross-border attacks into Chad.
Sudan in turn accuses Chad of supporting the rebel groups in Darfur.
Mr Bashir, who accuses Deby of failing to honour previous accords, has voiced scepticism about the feasibility of yet another deal.