UN helps broker accord between warring communities in Abyei

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UNITED NATIONS, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Two communities, whose fighting over rights in a disputed region between Sudan and South Sudan, have reached a peace accord under the auspices of the United Nations, a UN spokesman said on Friday.

The accord was reached between the Ngok Dinka and Misseriya communities, who fought over land ownership and access to water and grazing areas for decades, said Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), the International Organization for Migration, the Food and Agriculture Organization and Concordis International, a nongovernmental organization, have facilitated a successful meeting between the two communities of the disputed Abyei Box that lies between the borders of Sudan and South Sudan, Haq told a regular briefing in New York.

The four-day conference ended in Todach on Thursday. "At the end of the meeting, they agreed on a number of key areas, including cessation of hostilities and regular engagement and dialogue, ensuring freedom of movement within the Abyei Box without restrictions, the withdrawal of all militias and armed units from the Abyei Box and the reactivation of the Peace Committee," said Haq.

Concordis International said on its website that it arranged a meeting between the Dinka and the Misseriya in 2016, when they agreed on a 20-member Joint Community Peace Committee that periodically met to resolve differences until violence erupted. There have been no committee meetings since a village massacre in January 2020.

Sara Nyanti, the deputy special representative of the UN secretary-general and resident and humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, said the Abyei Box's undefined political status has created a highly politicized environment, where the rule of law has been absent beyond customary law and intercommunal conflict is rife.

The Abyei Box has been claimed by Sudan and South Sudan since the 10 southernmost states of Sudan gained independence in 2011. It is formally known as the Abyei Administrative Area.