South Sudan submits complaints on recent attacks to UNISFA
By Bonifacio Taban Kuich
March 29, 2013 (JUBA) – South Sudan says it has reported recent cross-border attacks from Sudanese nomadic groups, during the period that two sides agreed to create a buffer zone along their tense border, to the United Nations force tasked with monitoring the world’s newest international border.
South Sudan officials have accused the Sudanese government of failing to stop armed groups, north of the border from attacking its territory and have reported the incidents to UNISFA.
The most recent alleged attacks have been against Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, claiming the lives of two police men and one civilian.
South Sudan’s Information and Broadcasting Minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, said the Sudanese government is responsible for two incidents, which occurred in Upper Nile and Northern Bahr el-Ghazal this week.
“We have already launch our complaints to UNISFA, which is the coordinating committee which can receive any complaints of course on our part there is such case where you withdraw, you expect some incidents but it is unfortunate that the Republic of Sudan is not controlling its side of the story”, said Marial while addressing journalists on Friday.
South Sudan’s government will stop its citizens from crossing into Sudanese territory, the minister said.
“We on our part, we are proud to say that the government of the republic of South Sudan has control, we control our citizens, we have not crossed even an inch to cause any injury to the citizens of the Republic of Sudan, so we hope Khartoum will equally respond to contain these incursions by individuals which are supposed to be under their control”, added the information Minister.
Despite the acts of deadly aggression and banditry carried out by Sudanese pastoralists, Marial said his government is committed towards implementing all the agreements it signed with Sudan.
“We [are] getting signal[s] from the press that with incursions, is the cooperation agreement not going again to fall into problem and I would like to assure, we are on course and we are committed as required by the African implementing panel,” Benjamin said.
Marial publicly announced on Thursday that South Sudan’s army have completed their withdrawal 10km from the disputed border as per the implementation matrix signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the start of the month under African Union (AU) mediation.
The Ethiopian peacekeepers which constitute the UN mission to Abyei are due to form a joint mechanism with the elements from the South Sudanese and Sudanese armies to monitor the buffer zone.
There is a UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) with a chapter seven from the UN Security Council mandate to protect civilians, but there is no UN peacekeeping presence in Sudan – with the exception of the joint AU-UN mission in Darfur (UNAMID), which is not mandated to deal with north-south relations.
(ST)