Tabitha Chol, an MP representing Abyei in the Council of States, alleged of a systematic scheme, targeting of constitutional post holders from Abyei by elements from the neighbouring Twic County. She said a former minister from Abyei was also killed in a similar ambush in November last year.
“We are saying that the issue of Abyei and Twic is taking a different turn, it is like there are invisible hands behind the issue of land. We call on the South Sudan Government to swiftly form an investigation committee to probe the killing of the deputy administrator and the former minister,” Tabitha said. She further called on the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA) to protect the people of Abyei within the Abyei Box.
Reporting by Waakhe Simon Wudu
Dated Monday, January 1, 2024, 9:39 AM GMT - here is a copy in full:
Six killed in disputed region bordering Sudan, South Sudan
JUBA, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Six people including a senior local administrator were killed in an ambush by armed men in the Abyei region claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, local officials said.
The oil-rich region experiences frequent bouts of violence, where rival factions of the Dinka ethnic group - Twic Dinka from South Sudan's neighbouring Warrap State, and Ngok Dinka from Abyei - are locked in a dispute over the location of an administrative boundary.
Abyei Deputy Chief Administrator Noon Deng and his team came under attack along the road from Abyei to Aneet town when they were returning from an official visit to Rummamer county, where they were celebrating the New Year, government officials said.
"His driver and two bodyguards plus two people of national security were all killed," Tereza Chol, a South Sudanese lawmaker, told Reuters.
Bulis Koch, the information minister for Abyei Administrative Area, blamed the Sunday evening attack on armed youth from Twic County of Warrap State, and said the bodies had not been retrieved as of Monday morning.
His counterpart in the Warrap State William Wol said it was still early "to point fingers".
The incident is the latest in a region where dozens were killed in ethnic clashes in November.
Straddling an ill-defined border between Sudan and South Sudan, Abyei has been claimed by both countries since Juba declared independence from Khartoum in 2011.
It has a special administrative status, governed by an administration comprising officials appointed by both countries.
South Sudan erupted into civil war shortly after independence, which pitted President Salva Kiir and his allies against his Vice President Riek Machar.
A peace agreement signed in 2018 is largely holding, but the transitional government has been slow to unify the various factions of the military.
Reporting by Waakhe Simon Wudu; Writing by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Jan Harvey
View original: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/six-killed-disputed-region-bordering-sudan-south-sudan-2024-01-01/
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Related Reports
Radio Tamazuj - January 2, 2024
Juba: MPs want inquest into Abyei administrator’s killing - here is an excerpt and map:
Tabitha Chol, an MP representing Abyei in the Council of States, alleged of a systematic scheme, targeting of constitutional post holders from Abyei by elements from the neighbouring Twic County. She said a former minister from Abyei was also killed in a similar ambush in November last year. “We are saying that the issue of Abyei and Twic is taking a different turn, it is like there are invisible hands behind the issue of land. We call on the South Sudan Government to swiftly form an investigation committee to probe the killing of the deputy administrator and the former minister,” Tabitha said. She further called on the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA) to protect the people of Abyei within the Abyei Box.
View full story: https://radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/juba-mps-want-inquest-into-abyei-administrators-killing
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Radio Tamazuj - January 1, 2024
Opinion piece by Morris Kuol Yoll - here are some excerpts and map:
Abyei Box is a distortion of the boundary between Sudan and South Sudan
The northern boundary, known as the “Kordofan-Barh el Gazal boundary,” refers to the boundary between the Sudan and South Sudan north of Abyei. This boundary separates Ngok and Messirya. The Southern boundary between Barh el Gazal and Kordofan, as of 1 January 1956, is known as the Kiir River and separates Ngok of Abyei and Twic County.
The boundary between Twic Dinka of Barh el Gazal and Ngok Dinka of Kordofan, Sudan, was left as it is according to The Hague's arbitration awards ruling of 22 July 2009, as stipulated in the following document: “In respect of the ABC Experts’ decision that “[t]he southern boundary shall be the Kordofan – Bahr el-Ghazal – Upper Nile boundary as it was defined on 1 January 1956,” the ABC Experts did not exceed their mandate” (Report of International Arbitration Awards, P.413).
The Southern Sudan Boundary Background report recommends that the Southern boundary between Twic and Ngok be resolved after 2011 and recommends that physical landmarks be developed to help when the demarcation of this boundary comes forth in the future.
The ABC's "Southern Sudan Boundary Background" report does not refer to the map of the Sudan, which indicates the 1 January 1956 boundary running through the Kiir River, but another map (the current Abyei Box) that crossed the Kiir River with undefined physical boundaries, and a map with no "topography” or landmarks, a map that according to the ABC report could pose problems when the time to demarcate the boundary between Twic County and Abyei Special Administration arrives.
View full story: https://radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/opinion-abyei-box-is-a-distortion-of-the-boundary-between-sudan-and-south-sudan
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Sudan Watch - January 10, 2009
Former Wall Street banker Philippe Heilberg gambles on a warlord's continuing control of 400,000 hectares of land in South Sudan (Update 1) - here are two excerpts:
There are few regions in Africa as remote and undeveloped as southern Sudan. Unity state, where Philippe Heilberg says he has secured a huge tract of arable land, is inaccessible even by south Sudan's standards.
Jarch Management Group is linked to Jarch Capital, a US investment company that counts on its board former state department and intelligence officials, including Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador and expert on Africa, who acts as vice-chairman; and Gwyneth Todd, who was an adviser on the Middle East and north Africa at the Pentagon and under Bill Clinton at the White House.
View full story: https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2009/01/former-wall-street-banker-philippe.html
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