15 Sudanese soldiers held for killings in South
Oct 23, 2006 (NAIROBI) — Fifteen soldiers from Sudan’s federal army have been arrested for a string of attacks that left at least 38 civilians dead in the south, a South Sudan military official said Monday.
The troops were seized after a firefight with south Sudanese military close to the scene of the Sept. 18 attacks near the regional capital, Juba, South Sudan, Maj. Gen. Wilson Deng said in a telephone interview from Juba. Two other federal soldiers were killed.
The announcement comes amid concern that a peace deal ending a two-decade north-south war may be tattering.
The 15 soldiers “are under arrest and under investigation,” Deng said, adding the results of a preliminary investigation were expected later Monday.
The soldiers were arrested on the same day as the attack. Deng gave no reason why details have only just emerged of the arrests.
The attacks were initially blamed on a Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has rear bases in southern Sudan. The rebels, who denied they were to blame, were accused of violating a fragile peace agreement with the Ugandan government.
The killings prompted the U.N. refugee agency to temporarily call off repatriation of southern Sudanese refugees to Sudan from Uganda. The Ugandan government has also temporarily closed its border with Sudan because of the killings, accusing the LRA of being responsible.
Deng, chairman of a Sudanese team set up to monitor the truce between the LRA and the Ugandan government, said no evidence against the Ugandan rebels had been found.
South Sudan set up its own administration as part of a peace deal in January 2005 with the Khartoum-based government that ended two decades of civil war. Joint units of federal and South Sudan troops are based in some areas in the south.
Last month, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report that many of the most important promises under the north-south peace deal haven’t been met, threatening to plunge the long-suffering region back into violence.
(AP)