Khartoum militias fire at UN helicopters in Abyei as up to 40,000 flee unrest

Four United Nations helicopters were shot at, probably by militias allied to north Sudan, in the central region in Abyei but the crews landed safely, as violence in and around the contested region has displaced up to 40,000 people amid reports of war crimes, looting and burning.

A total of 14 rounds were fired when the helicopters took off on Tuesday, UN spokeswoman Hua Jiang said.

North Sudan seized Abyei at the weekend, forcing thousands of people to flee and raising tensions ahead of southern secession planned for July.

Ms. Jiang said militias of the Arab Misseriya tribe supported by Khartoum were probably responsible for the attack, adding that they were now moving southwards after civilians had left the main settlement of Abyei, according to Reuters.

“There are reports that they are moving south,” she said.

Ms. Jiang said fighting and looting in Abyei had stopped after inhabitants left, adding that some stockpiles of UN agencies had been looted.

Senior UN aid official Lise Grande said Wednesday that estimates of the number of people fleeing had dramatically increased.

“Our initial estimates are that 30,000 to 40,000 people have been displaced,” said Grande who helps coordinate UN humanitarian efforts in south Sudan.

“That includes some 10,000 people from Abyei area fleeing direct fighting and 25,000 more from the Agok area, just across the southern border, where people are leaving homes fearing future violence,” she said.

Sudan’s northern army moved tanks into Abyei, the border area’s main settlement, on Saturday, sparking an international outcry as well as fears of new north-south fighting.

Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Tuesday that North Sudan will not withdraw from the disputed Abyei border region it seized over the weekend as the area belongs to the north.

“Abyei is northern Sudanese land,” Mr. Bashir said in a speech in the capital Khartoum. “We will not withdraw from it.”

He added he had given the green light to the northern army to respond to any possible “provocation” by the army of south Sudan which plans to become independent on July 9.

“We are concerned ... about the grave humanitarian consequences of what's transpired in Abyei. There have been horrific reports of looting and burning,” said Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN, visiting the southern capital Juba.

“The increased tensions over Abyei... and the use of violence threaten to derail the post-referendum negotiations and introduce a dire period of uncertainty as South Sudan prepares for independence,” South Africa said on Wednesday, according to Agence-France Presse.

“It is imperative that the two parties address the contentious post-referendum issues, including the border demarcation, the status of Abyei, the sharing of resources, amongst other matters, in a cordial manner that would ensure peaceful and amicable coexistence,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The South African government calls on the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement to cease hostilities,” it said.

South Africa had in recent years lobbied for south Sudan’s secession, with former president Thabo Mbeki playing a pivotal role in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that led to the January referendum paving the way towards independence.

For all but 11 years since Sudan became independent in 1956, a civil war has been fought in the country of 42 million people, Africa’s largest by land mass. Abyei contributes more than a quarter of Sudan’s daily oil production of 480,000 barrels. Sudan’s proven crude oil reserves are nearly 2 billion barrels.

The south is important to the north because that’s where most of the country’s oil is produced. But refineries are in the north, as is the main pipeline carry oil for exports.

The Abyei Area covers 10,460 kilometers in the State of Northern Bahr al-Ghazal in South Sudan.

Abyei is contested between the regions Ngok Dinka people, who are settled in the area and consider themselves southerners, and Misseriya nomads who herd their cattle south in the dry season and are supported by the Khartoum government.

The region postponed a vote, originally scheduled for January, on whether to join the south or remain a special administrative region in the north because of disagreements on who was eligible to vote.

Abyei produces less than 2,500 barrels of oil a day, according to Sudan’s Oil Ministry.

Fighting in the area three years ago between the armies of northern and Southern Sudan killed 89 people and forced more than 90,000 people to flee their homes, according to the UN.

(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya