KHARTOUM, Sudan—Fears of another civil war are playing out in Sudan as northern troops, led by President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, have overrun towns and attacked tribesmen loyal to the south around a contested border region of oil reserves and well-armed militias. Bloodshed and streams of refugees are a dangerous prelude to July 9, when southern Sudan, after decades of conflict during which more than 2 million people died, gains independence. The south will have most of the nation’s oil supplies and the incursions by northern forces appear to be a Bashir strategy to press the south for last-minute concessions.
The north’s economy is struggling and Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region, is loath to let billions of dollars in oil revenue slip away. US and other Western officials worry, however, that Bashir’s attacks along the border and in a neighboring northern state could tip the country into war and upset a volatile stretch of East Africa. Northern troops and tanks captured the contested Abyei border region last month, forcing tens of thousands of civilians from their homes. Holding Abyei would give Bashir a larger share of oil or allow him to negotiate for money from the south in return for withdrawing his soldiers. The north and south have yet to agree on boundaries or a formula to share oil revenue.
The northern-controlled oil state of South Kordofan has also turned dangerous. The state is filled with militants who fought the north in the civil war that ended with a 2005 peace agreement. Bashir sent his army into the area last week when tensions rose after a northern-backed candidate, who was also wanted by the International Criminal Court, was elected governor.
The United Nations says fighting between southern and northern elements forced at least 40,000 people to flee South Kordofan’s capital, Kadugli. The north claims that the Southern People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which runs the southern government, is using its militias to start trouble. The south contends the north invented that pretext to harden its grip across the Nuba Mountains and intensify pressure on the border.
“The government in Khartoum seems to have taken a more belligerent and proactive military approach to the situation, perhaps thinking this gives them some advantages in the negotiations, first by the military takeover in Abyei and then by sending forces into South Kordofan,” the US envoy for Sudan, Princeton Lyman, told Voice of America.
