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UN: Dozens killed in south Sudan fighting
 Fighting in the key south Sudan town of Malakal this week has killed about 50 people and left another 100 wounded, a United Nations official said on Friday. "According to our estimates, drawn from on-the-ground observations and different sources, the violence has resulted in about 50 deaths and 100 wounded" among both combatants and civilians, the official said. Fighting erupted on Tuesday between former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which now runs south Sudan, and supporters of Gabriel Tang, a former militia leader who fought alongside the Sudanese army in the 1983 to 2005 civil war. The clashes lasted a day, and an official said the situation was "fairly quiet" on Friday. Tang supporters, or Tangginyang, have been incorporated into Khartoum's regular forces, joining a mixed north-south unit patrolling areas that are still sensitive four years after the end of a war that caused two million deaths. Tang has been based in Khartoum since 2006, after clashes between his men and the former SPLA soldiers. He returned this week to the town near the border between the northern and southern regions of Sudan. Gabriel Changson Chang, information minister in the semi-autonomous south Sudan, on Wednesday accused the national army of seeking to provoke "a new civil war" following the Malakal clashes. But in a Khartoum news conference on Wednesday, Tang denied the south Sudan allegations and said he had gone to Malakal because a member of his family had died. Posted by: Fred 2009-02-28 |
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