By Agencies

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Rebels in Sudan's Darfur region claim they have detained 49 international peacekeepers and three suspected Sudanese intelligence agents for "investigation" after they entered a rebel-held area.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) captured the mostly Senegalese members of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission UNAMID on Sunday, announced rebels' spokesman Gibril Adam Bilal.

"They came to an area controlled by JEM without permission and without informing JEM," Bilal said on Monday, without specifying the location in the vast Darfur region of western Sudan.

He said the rebels were holding them to probe why they entered rebel territory, "and to investigate the three Sudanese because we think they are members of Sudan's intelligence and security service".

He added that the peacekeepers and their equipment were safe.

A UNAMID spokeswoman said "there is a situation ongoing" but could not immediately give details.

'Shocking turn of events'

Forty-six of them were from Senegal, including two officers, while there was one each from Yemen, Ghana and Rwanda.

Senegalese troops operate primarily in Darfur's northwest near the Chad border.

Harriet Martin, a journalist reporting from the capital Khartoum, said: "It's obviously a very shocking turn of events in Darfur because nothing like this has ever happened before.
 
"Relative to other peacekeeping forces around the world, it has had a pretty quiet mission. This is going to be a huge shock for the whole structure of the UN peacekeepers there.

"What's really not clear at this stage though is if this has come from JEM leadership or whether it's JEM operatives working ... opportunistically, if you like, on the ground."

JEM, a key rebel group from Darfur, announced in January that it had chosen Gibril Ibrahim, a one-time university professor, to head the movement after his brother Khalil, its former leader, was killed.

The new chief denied JEM had fractured and said the group would follow the course set by his brother to seek "democratic" change.

Earlier this month JEM released five Turkish citizens who, the group said, had been hired to dig wells for the Sudanese military. They were held for several months.

The UN estimates that at least 300,000 people have died as a result of the Darfur conflict, since rebels took up arms in 2003. Almost two million people remain displaced.

The Sudanese government puts the death toll figure at about 10,000, and says the number of casualties has been exaggerated for political reasons.

Last year the government signed a peace deal in Qatar's capital, Doha, with an alliance of Darfur rebel factions. JEM and other key rebel groups refused to sign the pact, saying it failed to address the Darfur problem at its roots.

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.