Sudan’s northern army has taken control of the disputed Abyei region and is clearing it of armed forces from the South, a minister from the northern government said on Sunday after violence escalated in the border area. Control of oil-rich and fertile Abyei has been the main point of dispute between northern and southern Sudan ahead of plans for the South to become a separate state on July 9 following a January referendum on independence. Analysts say the region is one of the likeliest places for conflict after fighting between northern and southern forces escalated in the past days. “The Sudanese armed forces control Abyei and are cleansing it of illegal forces,” Amin Hassan Omar, a minister of state for presidential affairs, told reporters after meeting a delegation of the U.N. Security Council in Khartoum.
He said the northern army had acted only after the south army had recently moved unauthorised forces into the disputed region in repeated violations of the 2005 peace agreement. “The government is committed to the peace agreement but the southern army wanted to enforce an unilateral solution,” he said. The United Nations had said earlier that the northern army deployed 15 tanks alone in one area of the main town, also called Abyei. The southern army (SPLA) said it had pulled out all forces of Abyei town after northern forces took control of it but was worried about the fate of other troops and civilians fleeing the region. “We call on the United Nations to protect civilians,” said southern army,” said SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer. “We are worried about our troops. Communications are poor, we cannot get through to them.”
“People fled because they brought in a full division and shelled villages with tanks,” he said. The mainly Muslim North and the South, where most people are Christian or hold traditional beliefs, fought for decades in a civil war that killed an estimated 2 million people. Tensions escalated after the north accused the SPLA of attacking a convoy of Sudanese soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers in Dokura north of Abyei town late on Thursday. The SPLA denied responsibility for the attack, which the United Nations said had taken place on a convoy of northern troops escorted by U.N. peacekeepers under a deal for both sides to withdraw forces from the disputed territory.
