Sudan says 86 killed in Malakal clashes
Dec 11, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese Defence minister said today that 86 people wre killed in Malakal clashes between the Sudanese army and the SPLA at the end of November.
Minister of National Defence, Gen. Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein, has announced that 86 people were killed and 285 injured in Malakal fighting. Responding to an urgent inquiry at the National Assembly, Hussein said that the dead persons in the clashes were one civilian, 44 soldiers of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and 41 troops of Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
The minister said that the wounded persons were 103 men of the SAF, 132 of the SPLM and 50 civilians, according to statistics of the Joint Commission, which is composed of three officers of the SAF, three officers of the SPLA and three officials of the United Nations.
The United Nation said last week that more than 150 people were killed and 400 wounded in Malakal clashes during one of the worst breaches to a 2005 peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil war between north and south Sudan.
The north-south peace deal formed separate north and south armies with joint armed units in main towns including Malakal, the capital of the Upper Nile State and potentially one of the most oil-rich regions in Sudan, which produces at least 330,000 barrels per day of crude.
Hussein affirmed the stability of the security situation in the area, adding that the investigation in the incidents is continuing. He stressed the importance of the integration of the forces.
He said that the incidents resulted in material losses, especially in the Military Area of the Armed Forces.
He indicated that the Joint Committee for the Ceasefire, which is headed by commander of the international forces, decided, in an emergency meeting in Malakal, the immediate ceasefire and separation of forces and return of all the forces to their locations and enumerating the losses.
The Minister of Defence said that the Joint Committee of the Armed Forces, the SPLA, and the United Nations, held five meetings to solve the issue of militias according to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, through absorbing the militia men in the civil service and the United Police Forces.
He attributed the outbreak of the incidents in Malakal to old differences between the commander Gibreal of the Sudan Armed Forces and the Brigadier John Mallot of the SPLA.
Gen. Hussein referred to measures made by the Security Committee in the Upper Nile State and the state’s Governor to prevent occurrence of more confrontations.
The fighting that erupted on Nov. 28 in the town of Malakal was the heaviest between Khartoum government and the former rebels since a peace deal last year ended Africa’s longest-running civil war.
The army and the former rebels have blamed each other for triggering the clashes, which ended with a ceasefire agreement on Friday. The U.N. said in a statement that both sides had now disengaged and redeployed to their areas.
The statement said U.N. peacekeepers and police, in addition to forces from both sides, were patrolling the town as part of an agreed “confidence-building” step.
The United Nations has some 10,000 peacekeepers in the south to monitor the north-south peace agreement, help train police and human rights workers and provide other services.
(ST)