Ex-rebels enter key south Sudan town for first time

JUBA, Sudan, Aug 4 (AFP) — Fighters from late Sudanese vice president John Garang’s ex-rebel group have entered the capital of south Sudan for the first time as part of a massive joint operation with the government to secure the restive town for his weekend funeral, officials and residents said Thursday.

Northern Sudanes-owned shops and businesses lie ransacked and torn apart, Aug. 3, 2005 after violence broke out in Sudan’s southern city of Juba following the death of First Vice President John Garang.(AP).

Up to 1,000 soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) arrived in Juba late Wednesday to help government troops restore order after deadly violence erupted in the town when Garang’s death was announced on Monday.

“Around a thousand are here,” said an SPLM/A official. “Most of them came yesterday. This is a massive deployment.”

At least 18 people and as many as 22 were killed in clashes, rioting and reprisal attacks between southern and northern Sudanese in Juba after Garang was killed in a July 31 helicopter crash.

The deployment of SPLM/A forces comes amid widespread fears that Garang’s planned Saturday funeral here, expected to draw at least 500,000 people, may spark new violence and looting.

At the SPLM/A base in New Site an AFP reporter saw dozens of other heavily armed ex-rebels waiting to board planes for Juba, which under a landmark January peace deal is to serve as capital of autonomous southern Sudan.

Juba resident Samson Fadhali Samuel told reporters that the former rebel fighters had helped quell widespread looting at the town’s Konyokonyo market that was dominated by northern Sudanese Arab traders, many of whom have since fled.

Government and SPLM/A security forces on Thursday rounded up more than 100 suspected looters, according to witnesses.

Juba, a garrison town for the Sudanese military that is home to between 40,000 and 80,000 government troops, was never taken by the SPLM/A during the 21-year north-south civil war that ended in January.

Between Garang’s signing of the peace agreement and his death, only senior SPLM/A commanders were in Juba, preparing for the eventual withdrawal of the Sudanese army after which the autonomous southern government will set up shop in the town.

“This is first time that SPLA troops have entered the town,” said Joseph Abuk, a longtime Juba resident who lives near a high school where many of the ex-rebel fighters are camped.