“On Saturday, there will be exactly a year left to prevent the return of a conflict that was once the longest-running in Africa — Sudan’s north-south war, which claimed about two million lives. With elections due this year and 365 days left until the crucial referendum on independence for the south, concern is growing among analysts, advocacy groups and NGOs working in Sudan that the spectre of widespread conflict is once again a reality.”
South Sudan vote could lead to war
“”Imagine if we had the referendum and separation happened and we had not yet agreed on the borders? This is war…”"
“Most of Sudan’s oil fields traverse the north-south border which has yet to be demarcated. Sudan’s external debt is about $30 billion. Salaheddin said hundreds of thousands of southerners in the north and northerners living in the south would be left in limbo if their nationalities were not defined. He also warned of regional problems over what international agreements would be respected by a separate south, giving the example of an agreement over Nile waters with Egypt. ”The government cannot go ahead with this referendum until some of these issues have been discussed,” he said.”
South Sudan army/civilian clash kills 17
“Seventeen people were killed on Thursday when armed civilians ambushed south Sudanese soldiers trying to disarm tribes following heavy fighting in the semi-autonomous region last year, an official said on Tuesday. A 2005 peace deal ended more than two decades of north-south civil war, but the south Sudan army has found it difficult to disarm civilians in the lawless south and tribal violence claimed an estimated 2,500 lives in the south last year.
“The soldiers clashed with armed civilians, 13 were killed from the soldiers’ side and four from the civilians,” Lakes State Deputy Governor David Noc Marial told Reuters. The civilians’ refusal to disarm was behind the ambush, he said.”
