Fighting in Sudan border zone kills 12 people

Renewed fighting in Sudan's most contested border region has left at least 12 people dead, with the area's top government official fearing more attacks in the coming weeks

Deng Arop Kuol, the chief administrator of Abyei, said that a northern Sudanese army convoy was stopped at a police checkpoint on Sunday while attempting to move south through the area without permission from his government.
Southern Sudan voted in January to secede from the north, and is set to become a new nation in only 10 weeks. The independence referendum was part of a peace deal to end more than two decades of war that left at least 2 million dead.
However, the issue of whether the Abyei region will be in the north or the south remains undecided, and aid groups and analysts fear the dispute could spark further unrest.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir recently threatened he would not recognize the new southern nation if it includes Abyei.
Attacks in the area already have left more than 100 dead, and the United Nations says about 20,000 people fled Abyei town in early March because of the violence. Southern officials have blamed the attacks on the northern military, which has denied any involvement.
In the latest unrest, Kuol said at least 12 people were killed. However, the U.N. said it found 14 dead bodies at the site of the clash, 11 of them in uniforms from the joint military force made up of members from both the north and south.
Members of the convoy identified themselves as members of that joint military force. Kuol, though said they were accompanied by Sudanese Armed Forces from the north and should not have been moving south without explicit permission from his government.
Neither the northern or southern armies are authorized to maintain troops in the disputed Abyei area. The joint forces were created by a 2005 peace deal, but they have often fought against one another since the deal was signed.
Kuol told The Associated Press he fears the northern forces are seeking to occupy the Abyei area.
"Right now we are expecting all-out attacks from the side of the SAF on the Abyei area," he said. "They are amassing their troops so we will not rule out an attack (at) any time." A satellite monitoring project backed by actor and activist George Clooney has released images in recent months documenting military build-up by both sides in Abyei. The images also have shown the destruction of homes and whole villages in attacks.
The U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Southern Sudan said last month that 800 people have died and 94,000 more have been displaced in violence in the south so far this year. Fighting has further escalated since then between the southern army and a host of rebel movements active in oil-producing zones across the south.