The World - News from April 17, 1987

At least 2,000 Dinka tribesmen of southern Sudan were killed last month by Arab militiamen fighting rebels on behalf of the government, a south Sudan politician said. Samuel Aru Bol, chairman of the South Sudan Political Assn. Party and himself a Dinka, said Prime Minister Sadek Mahdi had asked him to investigate unconfirmed reports of a massacre circulating in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. Bol’s party, generally viewed in the south as a Dinka army, has been fighting government troops since 1983 for more autonomy for their region from the Muslim, Arabized north. There are an estimated 2 million to 3 million Dinkas in the African, non-Muslim south of Sudan.