U.N. council approves Ethiopian troops for Abyei (Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously approved a U.S.-drafted resolution authorizing deployment of 4,200 Ethiopian troops to Sudan's disputed Abyei region for a six-month period.

The resolution establishes a new U.N. peacekeeping force, called the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei, or UNISFA. Its adoption comes a week after north and south Sudan signed a deal in Addis Ababa to demilitarize Abyei and let Ethiopian troops monitor the peace.

Although the resolution gives UNISFA the authority to use force in self-defense and to protect civilians and humanitarian aid, it does not call for UNISFA troops to monitor compliance with human rights laws, as most peacekeeping forces do.

Instead, the resolution "requests the Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) to ensure that effective human rights monitoring is carried out" and report the results to the council.

It was not immediately clear how long it would take the Ethiopians to deploy to Abyei, a region straddling the north and south that some believe may have some oil reserves. Council diplomats said they hoped the deployment would be swift.

The resolution said the 15-nation council was "deeply concerned by the current situation in the Abyei Area, and by all acts of violence committed against civilians in violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law including the killing and displacement of ... civilians."

South Sudan is due to secede from the north to form a new nation on July 9. But the north and south have yet to agree on who possesses Abyei, stirring fears a long-running quarrel over the region could sour the secession and could spark a broader conflict.

In a power play ahead of the split, Khartoum sent tanks and troops into Abyei on May 21, outraging the south, human rights groups and regional and global powers who called it a violation of the 2005 deal that ended Sudan's long civil war.

The move followed an attack on a convoy of northern troops and U.N. peacekeepers which the north blamed on the south and which the U.N. said was likely to have been carried out by southern police or soldiers.

As Khartoum moved in, tens of thousands of villagers fled south in a panicked exodus to escape looting and burning.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Will Dunham)

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After decades of war, Sudan's Abyei defies quick fixes (Reuters)

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – When Abdeljalil Abdelrahim talks about Abyei, a war-scarred region in central Sudan prized by northern nomads for its grazing land, he has no doubt it belongs to the north.

"Abyei has been part of the north historically," the 41-year-old laborer said as he unloaded jerricans of food oil in a dusty Khartoum suburb. "If there is a war over it, I'll be fighting alongside my government, alongside the north."

Some 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) south in Juba, 36-year-old Abel Garang, from the southern Dinka tribe like most of Abyei's permanent residents, is just as certain the region is southern. "Abyei belongs to the south. It's our land, it's our place."

South Sudan will split away to form a new nation on July 9, but north and south have yet to agree who owns Abyei, stirring fears a long-running quarrel over the region will sour the secession and could spark a broader conflict.

In a power play ahead of the split, Khartoum sent tanks and troops into Abyei on May 21, outraging the southern government, human rights groups and regional and global powers who called it a violation of the 2005 deal that ended Sudan's long civil war.

The move followed an attack on a convoy of northern troops and U.N. peacekeepers which the north blamed on the south and which the U.N. said was likely to have been carried out by southern police or soldiers.

As Khartoum moved in, tens of thousands of villagers fled south in a panicked exodus to escape looting and burning.

Last week the two sides agreed to withdraw troops from Abyei and bring in Ethiopian peacekeepers, but the area's symbolic and emotional potency could make it a sore point for years to come.

"This could be the start of another prolonged bout of internationally-backed mediation, or it could be the first shot in a long border war," Douglas Johnson, a Sudan expert and former member of the Abyei Boundaries Commission, said.

A return to war, which neither north or south Sudan can afford, would destabilize the region by sending refugees back into neighbors like Kenya and Ethiopia and creating a security vacuum in the heavily-armed south.

ETHNIC DIVISIONS

A volatile mix of politics, history and oil has fueled conflict over Abyei, a microcosm for the ethnic and religious divisions behind a civil war that claimed some 2 million lives.

The Dinka Ngok people, part of the south's main ethnic group, live and farm the land all year round. The northern Arab Misseriya nomads use it for part of the year to graze cattle.

A major sticking point has been a dispute over who should be allowed to vote in a referendum over whether the region would join the north or the south after the split.

Southerners, many of whom see holding the plebiscite as a major concession in itself, say Abyei's permanent residents should decide, meaning it would be mostly up to the Dinka.

"They (the Misseriya) are guests who came to graze. What kind of guests invade?" one Juba resident said.

Northern officials like Rabie Abdelati, a senior member of the north's ruling National Congress Party (NCP), dismiss this as discrimination. "As you know, a nomad is a citizen," he said.

The importance of both constituencies means neither side is likely to budge soon, analysts say. Many Ngok Dinka hold high-ranking posts in the south, and the Misseriya were powerful allies for the NCP during the civil war.

Abyei also contains one significant oilfield, Defra.

Although the region has just a sliver of Sudan's reserves, Khartoum stands to lose up to three-quarters of the country's current output of about 500,000 barrels per day when the south secedes, and so may try to hold on to as much as it can.

In the worst case, analysts and aid workers predict a replay of the Ethiopia-Eritrea war, when two other regional countries took up arms over a border dispute after a similar split.

"The Abyei crisis could produce a much wider and deadlier war after July 9 if it isn't addressed before then," John Prendergast, a former U.S. State Department official who co-founded the anti-genocide Enough Project, said.

A PEACEFUL SOLUTION

If you strip away the politics and history, Abyei may not seem worth all the bloodshed. A flat area about the size of Connecticut dotted with huts made of mud and stick, it has been pummeled by war and has only basic infrastructure.

Many still see hope for a peaceful resolution.

When the north seized Abyei, the south's President Salva Kiir told its Dinka residents not to despair -- Abyei would remain their land "whatever it costs us," he said. But there seemed to be little appetite to return to armed conflict.

Analysts said this could be a political calculation aimed at securing northern recognition of the south's independence, but many also see a weakening enthusiasm for war over Abyei, especially among a younger generation less steeped in conflict.

In the north, too, where inflation and a depreciating currency are presenting fresh economic challenges, there may be less zeal to fight for the distant region than there once was.

When asked what Abyei meant to him, one 24-year-old tourism worker in Khartoum just shrugged. "Frankly, we don't need any problems from the south here in the north," he said as he sat with friends by a juice stand. "We need a peaceful solution."

(Writing by Alex Dziadosz; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Shelling erupts in Sudan's Abyei, official says (Reuters)

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) – Shelling between northern and southern Sudanese troops forced aid workers to evacuate the town of Agok at the southern tip of the disputed Abyei region on Friday, a humanitarian official said.

The country's south is just over three weeks away from declaring independence, but Khartoum and Juba have yet to decide who should control the fertile, oil-producing Abyei region, raising fears the two sides could return to open conflict.

Khartoum seized Abyei's main town on May 21, pushing as far south as the Kiir River, known as Bahr al-Arab in the north. The waterway has since become the front line between the two sides.

"This morning, from about 10 a.m., there was shelling on both sides of the river. Later there was shelling just a little bit north of Agok ... All humanitarians are being pulled out of Agok," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

The southern army said it had clashed with northern troops in the area, but it was not immediately clear if that was connected to the reported shelling near Agok.

A spokesman for the northern military was not immediately available to comment.

The southern military said it exchanged fire with northern forces in Abyei Wednesday. The northern army denied the report, suggesting internal southern rebel militias may have been behind the clashes.

Southern army spokesman Philip Aguer said there had been more clashes Friday, but did not give details.

"There was a clash in the same bridge area. The SAF (the northern Sudanese Armed Forces) came back. SPLA (the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army) fought them," he said. "We think the area might be overrun by SAF."

Negotiators from both sides have been meeting in neighboring Ethiopia since Sunday. Despite reaching an agreement "in principle" to demilitarize Abyei, no final deal has emerged yet.

Southerners voted for independence in a January referendum promised in a 2005 peace agreement that ended a long and brutal civil war. About 2 million people died in that conflict.

(Reporting by Jeremy Clarke; writing and additional reporting Alex Dziadosz in Khartoum; editing by Andrew Roche)

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US says Sudan move into Abyei was premeditated (AP)

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press – 49 mins ago

UNITED NATIONS – The Sudanese government's takeover of the disputed border town of Abyei increasingly appears to be premeditated, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said Thursday.

Rice said government forces seem to have used an attack by southern forces on a convoy of government soldiers from the north last week as a "pretext" to move into the town in the oil-rich Abyei region on the border between Sudan's Arab-dominated north and mainly ethnic African south.

Both the north and south claim Abyei, a fertile region located near several oil fields. Northern tanks and soldiers rolled into the disputed region Saturday following the attack on a northern army convoy Thursday, raising fears the dispute could trigger a return to civil war.

"There's real concern that the government of Sudan may have taken a decision to continue to occupy Abyei for its own political advantage for an indefinite period," Rice said in a conference call after returning from a Security Council trip to Africa that included visits to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and South Sudan's capital, Juba.

"Everybody is in agreement that this is a very destabilizing and unhelpful development and a violation" of the 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war between the north and the south, Rice said.

Under the peace agreement, a referendum on the future of southern Sudan was held in January and the south voted overwhelmingly to secede from Sudan, Africa's largest country.

But key provisions of the 2005 accord have not been implemented including a referendum to determine whether Abyei remains part of the north or the south, agreement on the north-south borders, and future security arrangements between the two countries.

Salva Kiir, the president of Southern Sudan, said Thursday he will not return to war even though the north was reportedly moving thousands of Arab tribesmen into Abyei villages abandoned by tens of thousands of terrified southerners.

Human Rights Watch said Thursday the Sudanese government urgently needs to halt looting and destruction of civilian property by its forces in the town of Abyei and hold those responsible to account. It also demanded that the government allow United Nations peacekeepers access to the entire Abyei area.

The U.N. Country Team in Sudan said late Thursday that the premises of U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations in Abyei town have been looted of medical supplies, surgical equipment, 800 metric tons of food which is enough to feed 50,000 people for three months, water and hygiene equipment.

The team said tens of thousands of people who fled Abyei have arrived in southern Sudan and are in need of urgent assistance.

Humanitarian agencies are trying to distribute food and emergency items, the U.N. said. But an unknown number of people have fled into the bush while in Turalei, 130 kilometers from Abyei town, 15,000 displaced people are living in the open.

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Thousands flee Sudan's Abyei as militias move south (Reuters)

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people fled Sudan's contested Abyei region as northern militias accused of helping seize the area over the weekend moved further south, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Armed groups, thought to be northern militias, also opened fire on four U.N. helicopters in Abyei on Tuesday, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

North Sudan sent tanks into Abyei, a central, oil-producing region claimed by both north and south Sudan, on Saturday, sparking an international outcry.

The move came at a highly sensitive time for Sudan, less than seven weeks before the country's south is expected to declare independence from the north, as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

Abyei was a key battleground in Sudan's last civil war and a symbolic emblem for both sides. The region is used all year round by the south-linked Dinka Ngok people and for part of the year by northern Arab Misseriya nomads.

Analysts fear further north-south fighting over the region could spark a return to full-blown conflict, a development that could have a devastating impact on the surrounding region.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged north and south to return to the negotiating table and resist "further acts of aggression."

"We must all impress on the parties that military confrontation in Abyei is not an option," he told heads of state at an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa.

Thousands of Abyei residents initially fled to the town of Agok, just over the border into south Sudan, said aid groups.

U.N. and aid agencies said up to 40,000 had now been forced to leave their homes and were moving deeper into south Sudan.

"There are enormous numbers of people now on the road from Agok to Turalei, on muddy roads. Many kids need to be treated for dehydration," said Gustavo Fernandez, program manager with aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Most refugees in Agok were living under trees, while 2,800 had found shelter in a local school, said the Anglican Alliance aid group.

"Civilians are down on streets and in bushes, no food, no shelter, no water and no medical assistance," the Anglican church umbrella group said in a report.

Misseriya militias started pushing further south after people left the region's main settlement Abyei town, said U.N. spokeswoman Hua Jiang.

"There are reports that they are moving south," she said.

Southern army spokesman Philip Aguer accused the north of using the Misseriya to carry out a land-grab ahead of the separation of the south.

"Misseriya are being transported by SAF (the northern army) to Abyei. They want to claim the land," he told Reuters.

NORTH DEFIANT

U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon urged north and south to return to the negotiating table and resists "further acts of aggression."

"We must all impress on the parties that military confrontation in Abyei is not an option," he told heads of state's at an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa.

Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir defied U.S., U.N. and other calls to pull back, saying Abyei belonged to the north. "We will not withdraw from it," he said in Khartoum on Tuesday.

The north's show of force could shake a fragile political balance that has held in Africa's largest country since the 2005 deal ended the civil war that left millions dead.

It could also delay the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between north Sudan and the outside world.

The United States on Monday ruled out dropping it from a terrorism list and restoring Washington's ambassador to Khartoum if it continues to occupy Abyei.

A total of 14 rounds were fired when the United Nations helicopters took off from a U.N. compound in Abyei town on Tuesday but they landed safely, U.N. spokeswoman Jiang said.

Jiang said Misseriya militias supported by Khartoum were probably responsible for the attack.

Fighting and looting -- some of which targeted supply bases of U.N. agencies -- had died down, she added.

Northern forces had deployed military aircraft at a northern airbase in El Obeid within striking distance to Abyei, said the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP), a monitoring group.

"The presence of these attack-capable planes in close proximity to Abyei is consistent with reports of SAF (northern) bombing attacks in Abyei within the past five days," said SSP.

No reliable casualty figure have emerged yet as aid agencies struggle to reach Abyei. Britain's ambassador in Khartoum, Nicholas Kay, wrote on his blog that two embassy staff had lost relatives in the disputed region.

(Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer in Cairo; Editing by Matthew Jones)

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Sudan's Bashir refuses to withdraw Abyei troops (Reuters)

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan's president on Tuesday refused to withdraw troops from the disputed Abyei region they seized over the weekend, defying international calls for them to pull out and raising the stakes in a standoff with the south.

"Abyei is northern Sudanese land," Omar Hassan al-Bashir said in a speech, adding he had given the green light to the northern army to respond to any "provocation" by the south which also claims Abyei and plans to secede in July.

Sudan's northern army moved tanks into Abyei town, the border area's main settlement, on Saturday, sparking an international outcry and forcing thousands to flee.

Analysts are watching how the south will react, fearing further north-south fighting over Abyei, which has oil and grazing land, could reignite a full-blown conflict that would disrupt the already fragile region.

North and south Sudan fought for decades before a 2005 peace deal that also allowed southerners to vote overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum in January.

The United Nations said on Tuesday it has asked south Sudan to investigate separate attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Abyei last week by what appear to have been southern security forces.

Such attacks, the U.N. said, amount to war crimes.

"The available information and eyewitness accounts describing the assailants, including their uniforms, strongly suggests that the attackers were members of the southern Sudan police or military forces," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York.

Khartoum accused the south of ambushing northern troops traveling in a convoy with U.N. peacekeepers on May 20 in the Abyei region. The south denied carrying out the attack.

Earlier on Tuesday in Khartoum, Sudan Cabinet Affairs Minister Luka Biong, a southerner, told Reuters he was resigning in protest at the northern seizure of Abyei.

"These are real war crimes. I have never seen such suffering. Houses are burned in Abyei town and south of it," Biong said.

U.N. officials said between 15,000 and 20,000 people fled Abyei, many heading to Agok, just over the southern border.

"We are concerned ... about the grave humanitarian consequences of what's transpired in Abyei. There have been horrific reports of looting and burning," said Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., visiting the southern capital Juba.

KHARTIUM DEFIANT

North Sudanese officials said their army moved in to clear out southern soldiers who it said had broken agreements by entering the area. The south denies this.

The African Union said former South African President Thabo Mbeki had met Sudan's President Bashir and southern President Salva Kiir to try and resolve the crisis.

Abyei remains the most contentious point in the build-up to the secession of the south, the source of 75 percent of the country's 500,000 barrels a day oil production.

The 2005 deal also promised Abyei residents their own referendum over whether to join north or south, but that did not take place as neither could agree who was qualified to vote.

The peace deal created a coalition government dominated by Bashir's National Congress Party and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), headed by Kiir. Both were also allowed to keep their own armies.

The coalition government is due to be dissolved on the secession of the south which currently has its own semi-autonomous government.

(Additional reporting by Ulf Laessing in Khartoum, Jeremy Clarke in Juba, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Barbara Lewis in Geneva, Wangui Kanina in Nairobi and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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North Sudan Abyei seizure 'illegal,' says south (AFP)

JUBA, Sudan (AFP) – Northern troops seized control of most of Abyei district on Sudan's north-south border Sunday, Khartoum said as the south accused it of an "illegal invasion" that threatens the lives of thousands.

The seizure, coming in the run-up to international recognition of the south's independence in July, was condemned by the world powers as a threat to peace between Sudan's north and south.

Abyei was granted a special status under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended 22 years of devastating civil war between north and south and requires both sides to keep their troops out until a vote to determine its future.

"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, told a news conference in Khartoum.

"This is because there is 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 Abyei protocol and the CPA."

South Sudan's government warned the north's "illegal occupation" of Abyei risked tipping the country back to a conflict that would threaten the lives of thousands of civilians.

"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.

"They (the north) are in a fighting mood but we can not accept that they drag the people of Sudan down the drain."

Both sides said they were committed to the CPA.

Omer said "the next step is that we are ready for engagement and negotiations to stop the problem.

"We are a responsible government, we'll not leave any part of Sudan in a security vacuum," he said.

The south's Benjamin said: "We are committed to the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement."

SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said earlier that "the fighting has been very, very bad" and that "indiscriminate" bombing forced people to flee.

"People have fled the area, because the bombardment was indiscriminate -- bombs from the air and from tanks on the ground," he added.

Troops loyal to the SPLA had all retreated into the south from the disputed district on the border with the north, he added.

Britain on Sunday joined the growing chorus of international condemnation of the north's move into the contested district.

"I condemn recent military actions in and around Abyei, including the attack on Abyei town by the Sudanese armed forces on 21 May and the attack on a joint Sudanese armed forces and UN convoy on 19 May," said Foreign Secretary William Hague in a statement.

The United Nations had called Saturday for an "immediate cessation of hostilities," after the United States and France called on Khartoum to withdraw its forces.

A UN base in Abyei came under attack, with a mortar round landing inside the compound, but there were no casualties, a UN spokesman said.

Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, which runs health clinics in Abyei town and 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the south in Agok, said in a statement the "entire population of Abyei town fled the city."

Its clinic in Agok had received 42 wounded people by Saturday evening.

Fighting in Abyei has pitted the former civil war enemies against each other since January when the district was due to vote on its future alongside a referendum on independence for the south which delivered a landslide for secession.

But the plebiscite was postponed indefinitely as the north and south disagreed on who should be eligible to vote in an area where conflicted loyalties and land disputes keep tensions high.

A UN Security Council delegation met Sunday with representatives of the Sudanese government in Khartoum but neither Foreign Minister Ali Karti, who was expected to lead discussions, nor Vice President Ali Osman Taha were present.

"The issue of Abyei was of course at the heart of discussions and the Sudanese party expressed its will to cooperate" with the international community, a participant told AFP on condition of anonymity.

State news agency Suna, meanwhile, said Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir ordered mixed local administrative units be replaced, a move violating the 2005 peace treaty.

The district's future is the most sensitive of a raft of issues the two sides had been struggling to reach agreement on before July.

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