Sudanese soldiers battle former southern rebels

[allesennogwat]

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudanese soldiers battled former southern rebels Tuesday in the oil-rich region of Abyei despite a five-day cease-fire, U.N. and Sudanese officials said.


Abyei lies just north of the disputed boundary line between north and south Sudan and remains contested despite a 2005 peace accord that ended a 21-year civil war, which left an estimated 2 million people dead.

The United Nations has pulled most of its civilian staff from the town of Abyei, although some 400 U.N. peacekeepers remained.

Many of the south's former rebel leaders come from Abyei and frequently vow to reclaim the area, but the northern government is reluctant to let it go because of its oil fields.

Clashes erupted there last week between Sudan's Arab-dominated army and the Sudan People's Liberation Army, an ethnic African militia — making Abyei a flashpoint that could destroy the fragile peace.

The U.N. says between 30,000 and 50,000 people have been displaced by the recent fighting. The casualty count is difficult to determine because of the ongoing violence.

SPLA forces approached Abyei early Tuesday and began shelling the town, Ravi Padan, a U.N. official who oversees troops in the area, told U.N.-operated Miraya radio. The battle lasted three hours before Sudanese soldiers pushed back the former rebels, Padan said.

Michael Majak, a southern official from Abyei, also said the battle lasted a few hours. The U.N. compound was hit by a stray mortar, but there were no casualties.

Army spokesman Brig. General Osman al-Aghbash said SPLA forces attacked an army camp "with the intention of taking over the town." He told the state-run Sudan News Agency members of the army were killed in the attack, but didn't say how many.

Sudan's 2005 peace agreement created a unity government led by President Omar al-Bashir and his one-time military rival, First Vice President Salva Kiir. It also set up a semiautonomous southern government led by Kiir, and called for national elections in 2009 and a referendum on independence for South Sudan in 2011.

The Sudanese People's Liberation Movement, which Kiir heads, has accused al-Bashir of breaching the 2005 accord by refusing to share oil wealth, failing to pull government troops out of South Sudan and remilitarizing contested border zones such as Abyei.

A fragile cease-fire was reached Thursday and consultations continued to ease the tension. SPLA released two members from the northern ruling party it captured during the fighting, and the two sides agreed to pull troops from the contested town. Under the 2005 agreement, only joint military units from both sides can be deployed in Abyei, until its administrative fate is determined in the 2011 referendum.

Majak said he isn't sure the cease-fire talks are serious and said the Sudanese army has refused to pull out of Abyei.

Any resumption of hostilities between north and south also would exacerbate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the western region of Darfur where government efforts to put down a 2003 rebellion there have cost more than 200,000 lives and displaced at least 2.5 million people.

[allesennogwat]

Fighters from the Justice and Equality Movement ride in the back of an armoured vehicle in western Darfur. Fighting has raged betweeen rival Sudanese forces in Abyei, the flashpoint oil-rich area between north and south whose status remains contested three years after the end of civil war.