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By AFP
Posted to the web on October 3, 2009 |
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October 3, 2009 (JUBA, Sudan) — Sixteen people were killed and several wounded in clashes in south Sudan between forces loyal to an ex-warlord and an oil-rich state governor's guards, military sources said on Saturday.
Friday's fighting in Unity State resulted from a "misunderstanding between Paulino Matip's guards and the guards of the governor" in the state capital of Bentiu, south Sudan information minister Paul Mayom told reporters.
Unity State, which provides an estimated 80 percent of all the oil currently drilled in the south, was the scene of persistent attacks in early 2008 between the Sudanese military and the Sudanese People?s Liberation Army (SPLA), the former southern rebel force that is now the southern Sudanese army.
Matip, a notoriously effective northern commander during the 1983-2005 civil war that claimed some two million lives, was integrated into the new southern Sudanese armed forces after the fighting ended.
He is now deputy commander-in-chief of southern Sudanese forces and has a loyal following of troops.
A military official said Friday's fighting involved SPLA troops guarding Matip's offices and those protecting the governor's building.
A senior SPLA source, speaking on Saturday on condition of anonymity, said 12 Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) members were killed and 17 wounded, and that four civilians died and four more were wounded.
Officials in Unity State earlier put the total number of dead at 12.
The military official said Bentiu was now calm, and that the SPLA had begun an investigation into the firefight.
The president of south Sudan, Salva Kiir, told a media conference in Juba later Saturday that Matip still keeps some private soldiers, although most of his forces have been integrated into the SPLA.
Kiir said the government has not moved to disarm these units for the sake of building confidence between the SPLA and Matip.
He added that Matip was however still doubtful about the SPLA.
But he stressed that the governor should not be expected to pay the salaries of members of independent units.
"[If anyone] wants to have his own army, the government will not give services and salaries to such groups," Kiir said.
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