Sudanese Death Toll in Clashes Around Abyei May Reach Nine, Officials Say
Clashes in Sudan’s disputed border region of Abyei killed as many as nine people as Southern Sudan prepared to vote today in a referendum on independence, the speaker of the local assembly said.
Violence erupted on Jan. 7 and yesterday north of Abyei town, speaker Charles Abyei and the chief administrator of the area, Deng Arop Kuol, said in phone interviews yesterday from the region. All those killed were from the Ngok Dinka tribe, who regard themselves as southerners, they said.
The attackers were from the Misseriya tribe, which is backed by President Umar al-Bashir’s government, and men wearing plain clothes and Sudanese army uniforms, they said. They said they didn’t know if any Misseriya were killed.
“We will defend ourselves as we can,” Abyei said.
Sudanese army spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khaled declined to comment in a phone interview from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, saying the army is not part of the dispute.
Misseriya leader Mukhtar Babu el-Nimer accused the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which governs Southern Sudan, of attacking his fellow tribesmen north of Abyei on Jan. 7. One member of his group and an SPLM soldier died, he said.
A referendum in Abyei on whether to join the north or Southern Sudan that was also scheduled to be held today was indefinitely postponed because of a dispute over who was eligible to vote.
Permanent Court
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, in a ruling in 2009, set Abyei’s borders to the immediate area around settlements of the Ngok Dinka, largely excluding the Misseriya.
Clashes two years ago in Abyei 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 United Nations.
Violence also erupted in oil-rich Unity state, with Southern Sudan’s army saying it killed six rebels during clashes yesterday and today.
Almost 4 million voters, about half of Southern Sudan’s population, are registered to cast ballots in the week-long referendum on secession. A majority and a 60 percent turnout are required for a valid result, which is scheduled to be announced Feb. 1. Independence would be declared in July.
A vote for independence will give the south control of almost 80 percent of Sudan’s current oil production of 490,000 barrels a day, pumped mainly by China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Sudan’s output is the third-biggest in sub-Saharan Africa, after Nigeria and Angola.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maram Mazen in Khartoum via the Cairo newsroom at mmazen@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Philip Sanders in London at psanders@bloomberg.net.
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