The market torched to ground by rebels according to SPLA troops in Bor, the state capital of South Sudan’s power-key eastern state of Jonglei, housing thousands of Internally Displaced People (IDPs).
KHARTOUM: Rebels in Sudan’s Blue Nile state yesterday claimed to have killed dozens of soldiers and disabled a tank during battle, but the military said it was the victor.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North said it “managed to destroy” a government convoy at Malkan on Friday.
Insurgents seized two other tanks in good condition along with long-range artillery pieces and various weapons, a rebel statement said, disputing government claims to have occupied the Malkan area.
Sudan Armed Forces spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said the battle in the southern Ingessana Hills had occurred 10 days ago, when Khartoum’s forces defeated the rebels.
Access to the war zone is restricted, making verification of claims difficult.
Ethnic insurgents from the SPLA-N have been fighting since September 2011 in Blue Nile. A more intense war broke out earlier that year between the rebel group and government forces in South Kordofan state.
The unrest is fuelled by accusations of political and economic neglect. Defence Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein said in November an operation had begun to crush the rebels.
More than one million people have been severely affected or displaced by the fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, the UN says.
Meanwhile, South Sudanese government forces said they seized the flashpoint town of Bor back from rebels on Saturday and Uganda’s army claimed credit for the operation, highlighting the depth of its involvement in the conflict. A rebel spokesman in Addis Ababa, where talks aimed at securing a ceasefire have been grinding on, told Reuters his fighters had made a “tactical withdrawal” from Bor, which has been heavily fought over since the conflict erupted in mid-December.
The United Nations says thousands of people have been killed and more than half a million driven from their homes in the fighting in the world’s newest nation. It has pitted troops loyal to President Salva Kiir against rebels backing Riek Machar, who was sacked as vice president in July.
“The SPLA has defeated more than 15,000 forces of Riek Machar,” Philip Aguer, spokesman for the government SPLA forces, told reporters in the capital Juba. “The SPLA has frustrated Riek Machar’s plan to advance and attack Juba, and install himself as the ruler of South Sudan.”
Lul Ruai Koang, military spokesman of Machar’s delegation at the talks in the Ethiopian capital, told Reuters the rebels had pulled out voluntarily on Friday.
“Our political leadership wanted to reorganize our forces for other important operations ... Not a single shot was fired when government troops entered today (Saturday),” he added.
Initially triggered by a political row, battle lines have increasingly followed ethnic lines with Kiir’s Dinka battling Machar’s Nuer. Bor was the scene of a massacre of Dinka by Nuer troops loyal to Machar, during an earlier conflict in 1991. Uganda, which for years backed the SPLA in its conflict against Sudan’s government before the south declared independence in 2011, has sent its troops to support Kiir. A spokesman said the Ugandan People’s Defence Force was behind the success at Bor, the capital of restive Jonglei state.
“It’s UPDF that captured Bor,” Ugandan army spokesman Paddy Ankunda told Reuters after first announcing the UPDF’s role on Twitter. “There was a lot of resistance but our force was overwhelming.”
Uganda deployed its troops to South Sudan shortly after the fighting began. At first, Uganda said it troops were there to help stranded Ugandans and protect key facilities. But it has since declared its role in combat.
Agencies
