The World - News from Jan. 30, 1989

Defending Sudanese troops ran out of ammunition and abandoned the southern garrison town of Nasir, besieged by rebels for more than nine months, the army’s general command said. A statement said that more than 1,700 army and rebel troops were killed or wounded in the siege of the Upper Nile town. The official Sudan News Agency said that Col. Mahjoub Mohammed Yousif, commander of the garrison, was among those killed. The statement said government troops were forced to withdraw after bad weather interrupted air drops of much-needed ammunition and supplies. The fall of Nasir is seen as a major blow to the Khartoum government in the five-year-old civil war in the south.