Sudan nomads clash with ex-rebels, dozens killed

March 2, 2008 (JUBA) — Former southern Sudanese rebels said on Sunday they had killed nearly 70 armed tribesman in an upsurge of fighting in a volatile north-south border area which they said risked reigniting a north-south civil war.

Edward Lino, a senior official with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) which rules the semi-autonomous south, accused the northern ruling party of backing the Misseriya tribesmen.

He said similar attacks in the future by the tribe could reignite a civil war which ended with a 2005 peace deal.

“If the skirmishes continue it is going to spread and it is going to be a very dangerous thing,” he told reporters in Khartoum. Asked if this could take the north and south back to war, he said: “Possible … we don’t want war.”

Tensions have worsened in the border region over the failure of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in the north and the SPLM to reach a deal on the demarcation of the borders of Abyei, the source of much of Sudan’s energy reserves.

In December, dozens were killed in clashes between the cattle-herding Misseriya and the former rebels.

Abyei’s status was left unresolved in the peace agreement ending the 21-year war which killed 2 million people.

Hassan Mohamed Sabahi, a Misseriya leader, told Reuters 37 tribesmen were killed during Saturday’s clashes while around 62 were wounded. He said his tribe started the fighting in retaliation for an attack last week by the SPLM armed wing.

But Major General James Hoth, a senior southern commander, said 69 tribesmen were killed. He said six southern soldiers were killed and 26 were wounded.

The clashes took place in a village on the edge of the Northern Bahr El Ghazal state west of Abyei. “Abyei itself was not affected although the fighting happened in some areas that are supposed to be part of Abyei,” Lino said.

POLITICAL TACTIC?

Lino said the NCP was using the Misseriya tribe in a tactic aimed at delaying the demarcation of the border between the north and south and a national census considered vital for the success of Sudan’s first democratic elections in 23 years.

The census is scheduled to begin on April 15 for two weeks.

“We conveyed this to them (the NCP),” Lino said. “They deny it but they know that they are the people behind it.”

NCP officials were not available for comment.

The Misseriya were among nomadic tribes armed by various northern governments during the civil war. Many were not disarmed after the peace deal.

The Misseriya says the SPLM are trespassing on their territory and should withdraw further south. Sabahi said as long as the SPLM remained “in our land” problems could continue.

“It is like someone moving in to my backyard and disputing my rights. What am I expected to do?” he said. “But we hope there won’t be more problems.”

Khaled Mansour, director of public information of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, said the world body was “very much concerned about the recent clashes and the lack of a solution in Abyei”.

“We are raising this issue at every opportunity with the parties … We think it is high time to focus on the need of the people,” he told Reuters.

The north-south civil war broadly pitted the Islamist Khartoum government against mainly Christian and animist rebels, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.

(Reuters)