Fighting erupted in Sudan’s Blue Nile border state between the army and forces loyal to the elected governor Malik Agar, both sides said on Friday, less than two months after the secession of the south.
The clashes follow a build-up of troops in Blue Nile and warnings that the three month-old conflict in nearby South Kordofan was likely to spill along Sudan’s new international border with the south.
“In a new upsurge of aggression and in an extension of what happened in South Kordofan, forces allied to the Popular Defence Forces and the Sudanese Army instigated an all-out attack on the positions of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) in Damazin” early Friday, Agar’s SPLM-North party said.
The attacks targeted the residence of Agar, the chairman of the SPLM-North, Sudan’s main opposition party, and the position of Al-Jundi Suleiman, commander of special joint units in Blue Nile state, at the entrance to Damazin, the state capital, according to the statement.
Agar was unharmed, but the offensive was later intensified to include all SPLA positions, the statement added, without giving details of casualties.