50 killed in south Sudan army mutiny

[News_Editor 48]

50 killed in south Sudan army mutiny

2011-02-07 03:25:19 GMT+7 (ICT)

JUBA, SUDAN (BNO NEWS) -- At least 50 people have died in the past four days after a mutiny in the Sudan army spread through towns in south Sudan's Upper Nile state, officials said on Sunday.

Thirty people died in the oil-producing areas of Paloich and Melut, adding to the 20 people, who were killed Thursday and Friday in Malakal, that southern Sudan's army reported on Saturday.

"The situation was very bad but it is now under control, there is no more fighting there," said Akuoc Teng Diing, Melut's county commissioner, as cited by the Mail & Guardian.

The disagreement surfaced when loyalists of Gabriel Tang, who commanded a pro-Khartoum militia during the 1983 to 2005 civil war between north and south, refused to surrender their heavy weaponry.

South Sudan is expected to separate from the north after 99 percent of southern Sudanese voted in favor of secession in the January referendum. The referendum was the culmination of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 to end two decades of civil war between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army.

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon remarked that for future of the region it is necessary an agreement on the sharing of oil revenue as well as border demarcations for a peaceful migration of communities between the two territories.

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