Fatal shooting in Sudan’s contested Abyei area

Three people died and two were wounded in Sudan’s contested Abyei area when gunmen opened fire on a passenger car on Tuesday.

Chol Deng Allack, one of the native administration leaders of Abyei, told Radio Dabanga that on Tuesday about six gunmen wearing military uniforms opened fire on a car carrying residents of Abyei to Noo market, 12 kilometres north of Abyei.

He said that three people were killed outright, and two others were wounded in the incident. They were taken to Abyei hospital.

Deng pointed out that the culprits seized the vehicle and escaped to an unknown destination. He accused the Sudanese government of backing its allied militants to destabilise the region.

Deng expressed concern over the situation, and pointed out that five years have passed since the Abyei unilateral-party referendum without any decision issued on it so far.

He called on the African Union mediator, Thabo Mbeki, to submit his report after he met the people of Abyei who had accepted his proposals since 2013.

He appealed via Radio Dabanga to the local community in Abyei region of the Misseriya and Ngok Dinka Ngok to be patient and maintain peaceful coexistence among one another.

Contention

The oil-rich Abyei area, which lies on the border between Sudan and South Sudan, has been in contention between Sudan ever since the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

There is no government or police force. Its status has been unresolved after the governments failed to agree on the border division. A United Nations peacekeeping mission, the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), has monitored the situation since 2011. It is entrusted with overseeing demilitarisation and maintaining security.

In May this year, a rare historic meeting between Abyei’s Dinka Ngok and Misseriya tribes took place in Khartoum, to talk about peaceful coexistence.

The meeting was the first of its kind between the tribes. It witnessed “an overwhelming spirit of historic peaceful coexistence between leaders of the tribes”, said the head of the general Dinka Ngok council, Sultan Zakaria Atim.