Rights group urges investigations into Abyei killings
May 24, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – A human rights group has expressed “deep” concern over the continued inter-tribal attacks between the between Dinka and Misseriya tribes in Abyi area located at the border between Sudan and South Sudan, urging “urgent” investigation into the incident.
The African Center for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS), in a statement, said these attacks resulted into the killing and injuring of several people.
The New York-based entity said it documented the killing of 21 people and wounding of12 others in four separate incidents in Abyei between April and May.
“ACJPS calls on the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) and the international community, to conduct an impartial and independent investigations into the circumstances of the killings and injuring,” partly reads ACJPS’s statement extended to Sudan Tribune.
“This investigation should be carried out with the aim of ensuring accountability”, it added.
ACJPS specifically appealed to the United Nations peacekeepers in Abyei (UNISFA) to deploy widely and ensure that patrol covers the upper areas, access ways and roads, links between markets and main residential areas.
It further urged the UN to review the 2015 agreement between the Dinka and Misseriya tribes that was signed in Alnam area in Abyei, in which both parties committed to ensuring security in joint markets and agreed to adopt compensation as a form of accountability in cases of damage resulting from attacks or loss of cattle.
The rights group also called upon authorities in Sudan and South Sudan to resume peace talks and ensure efforts to resolve to pending issues relating to Abyei Area.
In recent months, violence has intensified in the contested oil-producing region, despite the presence of the UN peacekeeping force in the area.
According to authorities in the area, some of the attacks were carried out by the Sudanese Misseriya tribe with the most recent one happening last month, whereby more than 40 civilians including women and children were killed by suspected Misseriya tribesmen in separate incidents in the area.
The Abyei Area, a territory of 10,546 km² on the border between Sudan and South Sudan, was accorded “special administrative status” by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the second Sudanese civil war.
In 2011, the UN Security Council deployed its peacekeeping force in the disputed area after deadly clashes displaced thousands of the population.
(ST)