South Sudan forces search homes for guns

JUBA, Sudan - Security forces blocked roads in a dawn operation on Wednesday in mainly Christian south Sudan's regional capital Juba, as police and soldiers searched houses for illegal weapons in a disarmament drive.

"It is a disarmament effort to take illegally held guns from the people," said Major General Kuol Diem Kuol, of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). "The SPLA is supporting the police who are the forces leading this action."

Residents were confined to their homes and witnessed soldiers posted on street corners stopping traffic. United Nations staff were also ordered to remain at home until the operation ended.

It was not immediately clear if the disarmament drive was limited to Juba, or if it would be rolled out to other areas.

"This is an ongoing operation run by the Ministry of the Interior," added Kuol.

"It is aimed at improving people's security and safety by removing these dangerous weapons from civilian hands."

Security forces have launched several previous attempts to seize arms across the south, a region awash with automatic weapons.

However, previous disarmament campaigns have been criticized for exacerbating violence. Heavy-handed but ineffective, they have left some regions at risk of attack from their still armed neighbours.

More than 2,000 people have died and 250,000 been displaced in inter-tribal violence across southern Sudan since January, according to the United Nations, which says the rate of violent deaths now surpasses that in the war-torn western region of Darfur.

The UN human rights rapporteur in Sudan, Sima Samar, had warned in June that south Sudan must take "pro-active" measures to halt ethnic violence.

Samar also said that the international community also needed to focus more attention on south Sudan.

A medical aid group said last week that women and children are being deliberately targeted in ethnic clashes south Sudan, in a new pattern of fighting that leaves more dead than wounded.

"This is new - the intention is to attack a village and to kill. The result is a population living in total fear, with significant humanitarian and medical needs," Jonathan Whittall, head of Medecins sans Frontieres in south Sudan, said in the statement.

"The violent clashes are different to the traditional 'cattle rustling' that normally occurs each year. Women and children, usually spared in this fighting, are now deliberately targeted and the number of deaths are higher than the number of wounded," he said.

The south has long been dogged by cattle-rustling and periodic outbreaks of violence between rival groups but the ferocity of recent attacks has shocked many.

Between January and November 2008, some 187,000 people were displaced by ethnic and armed conflict in south Sudan.

Attacks by rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters in West and Central Equatoria since December have also affected some 100,000 people, according to UN estimates.

LRA launched a series of bloody attacks after Uganda, southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) began a joint operation against them last December.

For two decades the Christian extremist LRA has abducted thousands of children in northern Uganda and committed hideous atrocities, slicing off victims' ears and noses and padlocking their lips together. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and uprooted 2 million people.

Many Sudanese children were abducted by the Christian group, notorious for kidnapping children to use as sex slaves and combatants.

The guerrilla group aims to establish a theocratic government in Uganda, based on the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments.

LRA leader Joseph Kony is said to have named one of his sons "George Bush" in 2006.

Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=34221