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| July 1, 2008 |
North, South Sudan forces fail to leave Abyei in time
The SPLA will not move further south until the Sudan (SAF) army brigade leaves Abyei. It is extremely provocative for them to remain in the town. What is Khartoum planning?Tue 1 Jul 2008,
JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - Sudan's northern and southern armies have both failed to meet an end-June deadline for withdrawal from oil-rich Abyei, where fighting in mid-May displaced thousands, southern army officials said on Tuesday.
Clashes between Khartoum's Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the semi-independent south's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in Abyei town threatened the fragile 2005 north-south peace deal that ended a 20-year war.
"SAF's Brigade 31 that caused the fighting is still in the town (and) the SPLA is still in its place in the area, but not in the town," SPLA spokesman Peter Parnyang said. Under a roadmap for a settlement of the dispute, both forces should have left the area, making way for a special joint unit of northern and southern troops and a new police force. Quick implementation of these security arrangements, including free movement for the forces of the U.N. Mission in Sudan forces, is seen as key to the return of the 50,000 people U.N. officials estimate were displaced by the violence. The joint unit is in place but a new police force has not deployed, said Salva Mathok, the southern army's deputy for operations. "Our partners said that if the police are not on the ground, they cannot move out," he said.
Mathok did not give figures for southern troops but said they are mostly in the southern part of the Abyei area. He said the number of northern forces there could be as high as 8,000 troops, including along roads linking Abyei town to the north. Mathok said the southern army was committed to move further south this week, adding that a lack of transport for large equipment had caused the delay. Abyei's oil and boundaries have long been a source of tension between north and south. A group of international experts demarcated the area in 2005 but Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir refused to ratify its findings.
Two million people died and 4 million fled their homes between 1983 and 2005 as north and south Sudan battled out differences in ideology, ethnicity and religion. The discovery of oil aggravated the conflict, one of Africa's longest, further.
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