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Africa Horn
Sudan arrests foreigners in disputed Heglig
2012-04-30
KHARTOUM/JUBA: Sudan said it had arrested a Briton, a Norwegian and a South African on Saturday, accusing them of illegally entering a disputed oil-producing border area to spy for its enemy South Sudan.

South Sudanese officials denied the allegations and said the men were working with the United Nations and aid groups clearing mines and had got lost in the remote territory close to the boundary between the two countries.
The real problem for these fellows is the ownership of the mines they were clearing. That's why they were nabbed and taken to Khartoum. If they had been clearing certain other mines they would have been nabbed and taken to Juba. It's simple, really...
Sudanese army spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khaled said the three were arrested in Heglig - the scene of recent fighting between Sudan and South Sudan - traveling with a South Sudanese soldier in vehicles carrying military equipment.

“It is now confirmed without any doubt that South Sudan used the help of foreigners in their attack on Heglig. These foreigners were doing military work such as spying out the areas ... They had military equipment ... They have a military background,” Sawarmi said.

The group had been flown to Khartoum, he added.

A Reuters witness saw four men arriving on a civilian plane at KhartoumÂ’s military airport.

One of the men, a Westerner, was wearing a t-shirt marked with the slogan “Norwegian People’s Aid. Mine Action South Africa.” Reporters were not allowed to talk to the men who were swiftly driven away in an unmarked white van.

South Sudanese Information Minister Barnaba Benjamin dismissed the Sudanese account as “nonsense,” telling Reuters the men were workers for aid groups and the United Nations and had been clearing mines.
Again, that was precisely the problem...
South Sudan’s army spokesman Philip Aguer said military sources had told him a UN truck had got lost after leaving Paryang, just north of Bentiu, the capital of South Sudan’s Unity state, and was “caught by the Sudanese Armed Forces.”

BritainÂ’s Foreign Office in London confirmed the BritonÂ’s arrest and Norwegian PeopleÂ’s Aid (NPA) South Sudan director Jan Ledang said one of its staff members had been detained.

“We are trying to confirm the nationalities of the three and the aim and motivation of the three,” Norway’s ambassador to Sudan, Jens-Petter Kjemprud, told Reuters.

MECHEM, a demining company and an arm of South AfricaÂ’s state arms company, Denel, said two of its employees, a South African and a South Sudanese, were arrested along with a United Nations employee.

“We are working on a UN demining contract and our employees have full UN immunity,” MECHEM’s chief executive officer, Ashley Williams, said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.

The United Nations mission in South Sudan said one of its officials had been taken to Khartoum with three other men, without going into further detail.
Posted by:Steve White

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