Four dead, two children abducted in Abyei ‘militia’ attack

Four people were killed, two children abducted, and one person is missing after an attack on Monday by ‘militiamen’, that destroyed 60 homes in Mabouk village, 25 km southeast of Abyei in the disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan*.

Kilek Kual Lual, the security adviser in the Abyei area, told Radio Dabanga that a group of armed men, some of them in military uniform and others in civilian clothes, attacked Mabouk village at around 6 am on Monday.

The militiamen killed four people, and kidnapped two boys of seven and eight. A 28-year-old resident is missing.

Lual further reported that the attackers burned down about 60 houses with all their contents. After the attack, the residents fled to adjacent villages. “The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (Unisfa) sent a security force to pursue the attackers, but they could arrest them,” he said.

* Border dispute

Since the secession of South Sudan from Sudan in 2011, both countries claim the border area of Abyei. The region is inhabited primarily by members of the South Sudanese Dinka Ngok clan. It is also the seasonal home of the Sudanese Arab Misseriya herder tribe.

The Abyei status referendum, in which the residents of the region would decide either to remain part of Sudan or become part of South Sudan, was planned to be held simultaneously to the South Sudanese independence referendum in January 2011, but was postponed indefinitely because of disagreements over the process.

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