Rare air strike in Abyei injured one: UN - The Daily Star

KHARTOUM: A rare air strike has occurred in the Abyei region contested by Sudan and South Sudan, injuring one woman, the United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) said in a weekly report monitored Saturday.

The U.N. said it was the first reported aerial bombing in the Abyei area since last June, when Khartoum and southern officials signed an agreement to demilitarize the area along their disputed border.

Four bombs were dropped on March 31 in Um Khariet, OCHA said in its online report which cited U.N. peacekeepers based in Abyei.

Um Khariet is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Abyei town.

OCHA, in its weekly bulletin for Sudan, said humanitarian agencies "are extremely concerned" that the bombing will negatively affect the return of displaced people north of the Bahr el Arab/Kiir River and the peace process in Abyei.

"The majority of the 110,000 people displaced from Abyei in May 2011 have yet to return and cite the continued presence of armed forces, lack of clarity on the new administration, the destruction of infrastructure, the threat of landmines and lack of livelihoods as the main factors hindering their return," OCHA said.

Abyei, a fertile border district claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, was to vote on its future in January last year alongside a referendum on independence for the South.

That southern ballot delivered a landslide for secession, and South Sudan gained independence in July after Africa's longest war.

Both sides were to keep troops out of Abyei until the vote on its future.

But arguments over voter eligibility meant Abyei's plebiscite did not happen, and Khartoum's troops rolled in to expel the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army, sparking global condemnation.

According to a January report by U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, Sudanese troops and police remain north of the river, while South Sudanese police are stationed below it.

The U.N. Security Council has demanded that both sides withdraw their forces.

The March 31 air strike occurred during a period of high tension between Sudan and the South, with Sudan alleging a southern troop buildup near oil-rich Heglig to the east of Um Khariet after earlier border clashes between the two nations, and accusations from the South that its border region had been bombed.