THE NORTHERN Sudanese army seized control of a disputed town along Sudan’s north-south border yesterday, in a move described by the south as an illegal invasion.
A column of northern Sudanese tanks moved into Abyei town on Saturday, after several weeks of clashes between northern and southern Sudanese forces.
The seizure, which comes two months before southern Sudan is expected to declare independence from the north, was condemned by the US as a threat to peace between north and south. They called on the government in Khartoum to stop offensive operations and withdraw its forces from Abyei, which was granted special status under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between both sides.
The CPA, which ended 22 years of civil war between north and south, requires both sides to keep their troops out until a vote to determine its future.
However, the government in Khartoum alleged that the south had moved troops into the region.
“We are in control of Abyei and all the [Bahr al-Arab] area north of the bank of the river,” Khartoum’s minister of state for the presidency, Amin Hassan Omer, said.
“This is because there are still elements from SPLA trying to enforce its presence in Abyei and this is not acceptable according to Abyei protocol and the CPA.”
However, the south denied that the SPLA was present in Abyei.
"This is an illegal invasion ordered by the president of the republic, Omar al-Bashir. It is completely unconstitutional under the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement," south Sudan's information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin told The Irish Times.
He accused the north of creating a humanitarian disaster, as thousands of people were forced south with no hope of food, medicine or shelter.
“They are killing innocent civilians, women and children in their humble huts and villages,” he said.
Aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which runs aid clinics in Abyei town and 40km (25 miles) to the south in Agok, said the entire population of Abyei town fled the city. Its clinic in Agok had received 42 wounded people by Saturday evening.
“MSF teams in Agok are on standby to respond to a further influx of wounded,” the aid agency added.
Abyei was expected to vote on its future status in its own referendum, but it has been postponed indefinitely as the north and south bicker over who is eligible to vote in the poll.
Although it produces only a small amount of oil, Abyei has become an emotional symbol to both sides, who claim it as their own.
Administered for years by the north, it is home to Dinka Ngok farmers who strongly support the region’s incorporation in the soon to be independent south. However, Arab nomads of the Misseriya tribe, who migrate each year to Abyei in search of water and pasture for their flocks, want the region to remain part of the north.