| Posted to the web on January 12, 2011 |
|
|
January 12, 2011 (JUBA) --- Ten civilians were killed along Sudan's increasingly tense north-south border, Sudanese officials said, as voting continued in the referendum on southern Sudan's independence.
Dressed in their best ... some parents and their children have been returning via barges on the Nile for the chance to vote in the referendum. |
Colonel Philip Aguer, a southern Sudanese military spokesman, said several truckloads of heavily armed nomads ambushed a convoy of 23 vehicles carrying southern Sudanese, who were returning home to vote. As well as the 10 civilians killed, 18 civilians were injured and their belongings were looted, he said.
''Ten people die. Is that not a threat to security?'' Colonel Aguer said. ''We have to wait and see what this is, but it's a big problem.''
The attack on the convoy followed skirmishes at the weekend when more than 40 people were killed in the same general area along the north-south border. It has yet to be demarcated and is home to some of Sudan's oilfields.
Southern Sudanese officials have blamed militias from the Misseriya community who traditionally roam back and forth across the north-south border in search of grazing land for their animals.
The Misseriya are aligned with the northern government in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, and claim the disputed area of Abyei, along the border, as theirs.
Misseriya leaders have denied they were the aggressors in the attacks at the weekend and said that on Friday southern Sudanese soldiers fired the first shots.
|
