Sudan daily claims jets sent by unnamed Israeli organizations landing daily at South Sudan airport, unloading weapons meant for army
Roi Kais
Sudan’s al-Intiba newspaper reported Thursday that Israeli organizations have started transferring logistical and military equipment to South Sudan forces.
According to the report, jets have been landing at a Sudan airport at 3 am every day unloading missiles, military equipment and African mercenaries. The paper did not name the organizations behind the alleged deliveries, which, according to the report, began earlier this week.
Border tensions have mounted since South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan in July last year. The dispute has centered on three main issues: The demarcation of the border, oil revenue sharing and refugees.
South Sudan accused Sudan of launching air strikes in the border region on Wednesday, hours after the postponement of talks aimed at defusing the worst clashes since the South seceded.
The Sudanese army denied any attack.
The neighbors have fought repeatedly in the past few days along the poorly marked 1,800-km (1,200-mile) border, the worst direct confrontation since the South split away in July under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war.
South Sudan soldier guards oil facility (Photo: AFP)
Western nations fear the clashes could reignite a full-blown war between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian and animist South, with rival claims on oil resources a key part of the conflict.
South Sudan’s top negotiator, Pagan Amum, said Sudanese MiG-29 jets bombed the garrison town of Panakuach in Unity state after talks sponsored by the African Union had been postponed with no deal signed and no indication of progress.
“One (jet) has been shot down in Panakuach. This is very clear, it’s war-mongering that made them not to sign,” he said.
Sudanese army spokesman Sawarmi Khalid Saad denied there had been an air strike or that a plane had been lost.
Last week Sudan bombed oil fields in South Sudan a day after skirmishes at a border town led Khartoum to cancel President Omer Hassan al-Bashir’s scheduled visit to South Sudan for a meeting with President Salva Kiir.
In December 2011 Al-Intiba reported that Israeli aircraft attacked vehicles in South Sudan. The report speculated on whether the targeted vehicles had been serving arms smugglers.
The newspaper claimed that the first of two attacks was carried out on December 15. The IAF allegedly bombed two land cruiser vehicles, killing four passengers. The second attack was reportedly carried out on December 18. A car had been bombed and all its passengers killed. It was also reported that an Israeli apache helicopter landed in an area where South Sudanese army radar stations are located.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4213234,00.html
By Abdelmoneim Abu Edris Ali (AFP) –
KHARTOUM — A summit between the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan will go ahead despite its postponement after border clashes between the neighbours, African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki said in Khartoum on Friday.
Speaking after a two-hour meeting with President Omar al-Bashir, the AU mediator gave no new date for the summit which was originally planned for last Tuesday.
“President Bashir confirmed that the summit between him and President Salva Kiir is to take place after necessary preparation. When and where will be decided after the preparation committee finishes its work,” said Mbeki, who travelled to Khartoum after holding talks with Kiir in Juba on Thursday.
At the Juba meeting, Kiir “said the summit between him and Bashir must take place,” Mbeki told reporters.
His talks with the two leaders came after negotiators from Juba and Khartoum failed to sign an agreement on security after the latest AU-mediated talks concluded on Wednesday in the Ethiopian capital.
It was the first face-to-face meeting between the combatants since the clashes.
Mbeki denied in Addis Ababa that negotiations had reached an impasse.
South Sudan’s lead negotiator Pagan Amum accused the Khartoum delegation of walking out of the talks, saying “war mongering” prevented them from signing the agreement.
He also said South Sudan’s army downed a Sudanese fighter jet over a border area on the southern territory, but Sudan rejected the claim as well as the accusation that it refused to sign a deal.
The Khartoum delegation said it had to return home for consultations before committing to the accord.
Clashes broke out almost two weeks ago between Sudan and South Sudan along their undemarcated and disputed frontier, in the most serious unrest since the South gained independence from Khartoum last July, after Africa’s longest war.
International fears have mounted of a return to full-blown conflict.
Sudan suspended the leaders’ summit after the border confrontation began on March 26.
Mbeki said talks will resume within seven to 10 days, “because both sides said they are ready to come back to negotiations.”
Juba and Khartoum have traded blame over who started the fighting in the oil-rich Heglig region close to the border.
Sudan’s army has made repeated allegations of incursions by Southern troops, while the South in turn has claimed numerous air strikes on its territory by the north.
In February, the two sides signed a non-aggression pact but it has been repeatedly violated.
Mbeki and Bashir also discussed the future of an estimated 500,000 ethnic Southerners still in the north before a Sunday deadline for them to leave or regularise their status at the end of a grace period following the South’s independence.
“President Bashir said Sudanese people are very hospitable and there are many Africans living in Sudan. For the Southerners, nothing negative will happen to them and there is no reason for fear among them”, Mbeki said.
Under a framework agreement signed by Khartoum and Juba last month, nationals of each country have freedom of residence, movement and economic activity in the other state.
Both countries had also agreed to “accelerate their cooperation” to provide identification and other documents.
Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
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| Mass. woman takes nursing talent to South Sudan Boston.com Ramlow, a Gill resident, applied and was accepted to Medecins Sans Frontieres, better known in the Anglophone world as Doctors Without Borders, and has since volunteered more than a year in Africa, most recently serving refugees in South Sudan. |
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