Rifles, anti-aircraft guns found in Sudan search

JUBA, Sudan, Sept 10 (Reuters) South Sudan's army found more than 600 pistols and rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and four anti-aircraft guns during a surprise search of houses in the region's capital, officers said on Thursday.

"There were a lot of guns ... These are very strange things to find in the houses of civilians," the southern army's chief of staff James Hoth told Reuters.

Officers shut down large parts of Juba on Wednesday as they made door-to-door searches as part of a crackdown on illegal weapons.

The region is awash with guns after more than two decades of civil war that ended in a faltering 2005 peace deal.

The region's semi-autonomous government has vowed to disarm its population to improve security in the region, currently suffering from a wave of ethnic violence.

Some attempts to disarm remote communities over the past years have led to more bloodshed, but Juba's raid went peacefully, Hoth said.

Officers had to apologise, he added, after they accidentally knocked on the door of the Dutch embassy, and South Sudan's own legal affairs ministry during the search.