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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Feb 05 2011 - 07:45:56 EST
Sudan shootout kills 20, army warns of more clashes
Sat Feb 5, 2011 8:01am GMT
* Risk of clashes as Sudan divides forces ahead of split
* Mortars and heavy machineguns used in fighting
* Part of army unit resists move north
By Jeremy Clarke
JUBA, Sudan, Feb 5 (Reuters) - At least 20 people died in a shootout between
Sudanese soldiers in a southern town, the military said, warning there was a
risk of more clashes as the country divided its forces before the south
becomes independent.
Fighting with mortars and heavy machineguns broke out in Malakal on Thursday
and again on Friday when part of a military unit refused to redeploy with
its weapons to the north -- part of a separation of forces before the
secession of south Sudan.
An overwhelming majority of people from the oil-producing south voted to
split from the north in a referendum in January, according to preliminary
results released this week.
The referendum was promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended a decades-long
civil war between north and south that also set southern tribe against
southern tribe, in internal conflicts that have left deep scars.
Northern and southern leaders still have to finalise how they will share out
military hardware and security forces -- as well as oil revenues and debts
-- before the south's departure, expected on July 9. Many fear tensions
could re-emerge during the negotiations.
"This morning the number of dead (in Malakal) has risen to 20, and this
could change at any moment. Searches are continuing and many are wounded ...
Both sides were firing mortars and heavy machineguns," said southern army
spokesman Philip Aguer.
The dead included two children and a Sudanese driver for the United Nations'
refugee agency UNHCR, officials said on Friday.
Malakal is currently patrolled by a combined military unit made up of the
north's Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the south's Sudan People's Liberation
Army (SPLA), a force the U.N. said was in the process of splitting up before
the south's independence.
"SAF are supposed to go north, SPLA stay in the south," said Aguer.
The situation was complicated by the fact that the SAF unit included many
southern soldiers drawn from a militia that fought alongside the north
during the civil war.
Aguer said it was those southern soldiers in the SAF unit who resisted the
redeployment north and began exchanging fire with other members of the same
SAF unit.
"This fighting could happen anywhere where SAF has employed former militia.
They are not real soldiers and don't understand the arrangement," he told
Reuters.
He said the SPLA set up a buffer zone between the two sides and one SPLA
soldier died after being caught in the crossfire.
UNHCR staff held a minute's silence in tribute to driver John James Okwath,
26, who died in hospital on Friday after being shot in the chest, the agency
said in a statement. (Writing by Andrew Heavens, editing by Tim Pearce)
C Thomson Reuters 2011 All rights reserved
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