KHARTOUM (Agencies)
Dozens of people have been killed in fighting between Arab tribesmen and ex-rebel Sudanese forces along the disputed oil-rich province separating north and south Sudan, according to local media reports on Sunday.
The reports come only a day before a beefed-up joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur is set to take over from the current under-manned AU force in a bid to end years of bloodshed.
The clashes took place Saturday in the region of Guirinti in south Kordofan, near Bahr al-Ghazal where southern governor Madut Biar Yel said militiamen loyal to Khartoum had also taken part in the fighting.
Yel told The Citizen English-language newspaper that south Sudanese army units came under attack by fighters from the Massiria tribe and returned fire, killing an unknown number of people.
However, Massiria tribal leaders said the fighting started when southern forces began bombarding them.
Both sides gave different unverifiable casualty figures of up to 30 dead and 40 wounded among the Massiria.
Fighting in the volatile area, near the disputed oil-rich province of Abyei, erupted earlier this week, with south Sudanese leader Salva Kiir saying on Thursday that the situation was under control.
After weeks of tensions between north and south Sudan, who only ended Africa's longest running civil war with a peace deal in January 2005, Kiir insisted the fighting was "not part of any wider mobilization."
The Massaria want southern forces to withdraw beyond the current north-south demarcation line while the southern authorities accuse the Massiria of exacting taxes from southern civilians trying to move around. |
 |
Stronger peacekeepers In another troubled area, the United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) -- the UN's largest -- will eventually consist of 20,000 troops and 6,000 police and civilian personnel although only around 9,000 troops and soldiers are currently in place.
The bulk of the current force comes from the 7,000 AU troops who have been trying to bring peace to the western Sudanese region for the last three years, a joint AU-UN statement said on Sunday.
During that time 50 African troops have died, including 12 in the deadliest attack on an AU base of Haskanita in September in an attack widely blamed on Darfur rebels.
The bolstered force was authorized by the UN Security Council in July but it will not be fully operational until well into 2008 amid accusations Khartoum is stalling on the deployment and that contributing countries are not supplying enough hardware, in particular helicopters to patrol the vast region.
An official handing-over ceremony will take place on Monday, attended by Sudanese officials, during which the AU troops will swap their green berets for the blue of UN-mandated missions.
"The situation in Darfur will not be transformed overnight," UNAMID head Rodolphe Adada warned.
"However we are optimistic that the deployment of UNAMID will help to begin to improve the security situation in Darfur and create a climate favorable to the achievement of a negotiated settlement of the conflict."
The conflict erupted in February 2003 when ethnic minority rebels rose up against Khartoum to demand an end to the political and economic marginalization of their huge region the size of France. |
