KHARTOUM (AFP) – The Sudanese army said 75 of its troops and more than 300 fighters of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement have been killed in clashes in Darfur over the past week.

General Al-Tayeb Musbah Osman, the army's commander for the war-torn western region, said the army had also captured 86 JEM fighters, in a statement carried by the official SUNA news agency late on Friday.

It is unusual for the army to acknowledge such large losses in its own ranks.

The JEM said on Tuesday that it was locked in fresh fighting with the army, a day after the International Criminal Court charged Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir with genocide over his government's conduct of the conflict in Darfur.

In March 2009, the ICC already issued a warrant for Beshir's arrest on war crimes charges and charges of crimes against humanity in connection with the conflict.