The UN demanded that Khartoum withdraw its troops from Abyei region after what the south branded an “invasion” by northern troops of the flashpoint border area, while the United States warned said that Sudan stands “close to the precipice of war.”
Members of a visiting delegation of the UN Security Council said they were “very, very concerned about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Abyei,” and formally called on Khartoum to withdraw its troops.
“The members of the Security Council call upon the government of Sudan to halt its military operation and to withdraw immediately from Abyei town and its environs,” the French ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, told a joint news conference in Khartoum with his Russian and US counterparts, according to Agence-France Presse.
The European Union joined the growing chorus of condemnation over the seizure as a threat to peace between Sudan’s north and south in the run-up to international recognition of the south’s independence in July.
“I condemn the violent incidents in Abyei during the last few days,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said, pointing out that it violated the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the two sides which ended a devastating 1983-2005 civil war.
“I therefore appeal to all parties to resolve their differences in the framework of the CPA,” the statement added, according to AFP.
EU foreign ministers would be considering the crisis at their scheduled meeting in Brussels on Monday, she added.
The UN Security Council delegation was meanwhile headed to the southern regional capital Juba for talks with southern leaders including President Salva Kiir.
Abyei was granted special status under the 2005 peace deal, and it requires both sides to keep their troops out until a vote on its future.
“We are in control of Abyei and all the area north of the bank of the (Bahr al-Arab) river,” Khartoum’s minister of state for the presidency, Amin Hassan Omar, told a news conference in Khartoum.
Last month, President Bashir, 67, said he would not recognize south Sudan as an independent state unless it gave up a claim on Abyei, made in the south’s draft constitution, according to Reuters. Sudan’s total population is estimated at 42 million, with 8.5 million in the south.
For all but 11 years since Sudan became independent in 1956, a civil war has been fought in the country, 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.
“This is because there are still elements from SPLA (the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army) trying to enforce its presence in Abyei, and this is not acceptable according to the Abyei protocol and the CPA.”
South Sudan’s government dismissed the allegation as an “absolute lie” and warned the north’s “illegal occupation” of Abyei risked tipping the country back to a conflict that would threaten the lives of thousands.
“This is an illegal invasion and breaks all the peace agreements, endangering the lives of thousands of civilians,” said south Sudan’s information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin.
“This event is a long-term plan of the government of Khartoum,” he said, accusing the northern troops of “burning houses on a rampage of looting,” as he appealed for UN peacekeepers to “come out of their bunkers.”
Senior US Senator John Kerry, a frequent visitor to Sudan who has put huge energy into encouraging the successful implementation of the 2005 peace deal, echoed the warning of the risks of a return to conflict and warned Khartoum it risked torpedoing a promised rapprochement with Washington.
“At this very moment, Sudan stands ominously close to the precipice of war,” said Senator Kerry, who chairs the influential Foreign Relations Committee.
“Both sides must put an end to the recent provocations and quickly get back on course before the situation deteriorates any further,” he said.
“The cumulative impact of this series of events threatens the lives of those on the ground, the peaceful separation between north and south, and any of Khartoum’s hopes for a new relationship with the United States,” he said.
Mr. Kerry travelled to Sudan in October, November and January in a bid to persuade Khartoum to cooperate with a promised January referendum on independence for the south that delivered a landslide for secession in return for a promise of better ties with Washington.
Fighting in Abyei came to a halt later on Sunday, a joint UN-AU peacekeeping force said.
Aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres, which runs health clinics in Abyei town and 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the south in Agok, said in a statement the “entire population of Abyei town fled the city,” according to Reuters.
Its clinic in Agok had received 42 wounded people by Saturday evening.
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.
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.
The January 9 -15 referendum results showed a 98.9 percent vote for southerners’ desire to secede from the north. The referendum was a consequence of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ending Africa’s longest civil war.
Another referendum was supposed to take to decide the fate of Abyei but it was postponed due to the conflict over demarcation and residency rights.
The last civil war killed an estimated 2 million people and forced around 4 million to flee, many of them to countries neighboring Sudan.
Analysts say there is a risk Abyei fighting could spread to other parts of Sudan, particularly the surrounding region of South Kordifan, also hit by north-south tensions.
(Dina Al-Shibeeb, an editor at Al Arabiya
Members of a visiting delegation of the UN Security Council said they were “very, very concerned about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Abyei,” and formally called on Khartoum to withdraw its troops.
“The members of the Security Council call upon the government of Sudan to halt its military operation and to withdraw immediately from Abyei town and its environs,” the French ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, told a joint news conference in Khartoum with his Russian and US counterparts, according to Agence-France Presse.
“I condemn the violent incidents in Abyei during the last few days,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said, pointing out that it violated the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the two sides which ended a devastating 1983-2005 civil war.
“I therefore appeal to all parties to resolve their differences in the framework of the CPA,” the statement added, according to AFP.
EU foreign ministers would be considering the crisis at their scheduled meeting in Brussels on Monday, she added.
The UN Security Council delegation was meanwhile headed to the southern regional capital Juba for talks with southern leaders including President Salva Kiir.
Abyei was granted special status under the 2005 peace deal, and it requires both sides to keep their troops out until a vote on its future.
“We are in control of Abyei and all the area north of the bank of the (Bahr al-Arab) river,” Khartoum’s minister of state for the presidency, Amin Hassan Omar, told a news conference in Khartoum.
Last month, President Bashir, 67, said he would not recognize south Sudan as an independent state unless it gave up a claim on Abyei, made in the south’s draft constitution, according to Reuters. Sudan’s total population is estimated at 42 million, with 8.5 million in the south.
For all but 11 years since Sudan became independent in 1956, a civil war has been fought in the country, 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.
“This is because there are still elements from SPLA (the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army) trying to enforce its presence in Abyei, and this is not acceptable according to the Abyei protocol and the CPA.”
South Sudan’s government dismissed the allegation as an “absolute lie” and warned the north’s “illegal occupation” of Abyei risked tipping the country back to a conflict that would threaten the lives of thousands.
“This is an illegal invasion and breaks all the peace agreements, endangering the lives of thousands of civilians,” said south Sudan’s information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin.
“This event is a long-term plan of the government of Khartoum,” he said, accusing the northern troops of “burning houses on a rampage of looting,” as he appealed for UN peacekeepers to “come out of their bunkers.”
Senior US Senator John Kerry, a frequent visitor to Sudan who has put huge energy into encouraging the successful implementation of the 2005 peace deal, echoed the warning of the risks of a return to conflict and warned Khartoum it risked torpedoing a promised rapprochement with Washington.
“At this very moment, Sudan stands ominously close to the precipice of war,” said Senator Kerry, who chairs the influential Foreign Relations Committee.
“Both sides must put an end to the recent provocations and quickly get back on course before the situation deteriorates any further,” he said.
“The cumulative impact of this series of events threatens the lives of those on the ground, the peaceful separation between north and south, and any of Khartoum’s hopes for a new relationship with the United States,” he said.
Mr. Kerry travelled to Sudan in October, November and January in a bid to persuade Khartoum to cooperate with a promised January referendum on independence for the south that delivered a landslide for secession in return for a promise of better ties with Washington.
Fighting in Abyei came to a halt later on Sunday, a joint UN-AU peacekeeping force said.
Aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres, which runs health clinics in Abyei town and 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the south in Agok, said in a statement the “entire population of Abyei town fled the city,” according to Reuters.
Its clinic in Agok had received 42 wounded people by Saturday evening.
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.
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.
The January 9 -15 referendum results showed a 98.9 percent vote for southerners’ desire to secede from the north. The referendum was a consequence of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ending Africa’s longest civil war.
Another referendum was supposed to take to decide the fate of Abyei but it was postponed due to the conflict over demarcation and residency rights.
The last civil war killed an estimated 2 million people and forced around 4 million to flee, many of them to countries neighboring Sudan.
Analysts say there is a risk Abyei fighting could spread to other parts of Sudan, particularly the surrounding region of South Kordifan, also hit by north-south tensions.
(Dina Al-Shibeeb, an editor at Al Arabiya
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