South Sudan battle against insurgents kills 163 - The Guardian

Soldiers from South Sudan's SPLA. The army will continue to tackle the rebels according Colonel Philip Aguer, the military spokesman. Photograph: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

A heavy military battle inside South Sudan's border killed 163 people, mostly rebels, when government soldiers clashed with rebels that South Sudan accuses its neighbour Sudan of supporting, officials said Thursday.

South Sudan's military spokesman, Colonel Philip Aguer, said 143 rebels led by David Yau Yau died in the battle. Aguer said 20 government forces were killed and 70 wounded in the fighting on Tuesday.

Aguer said government forces captured an airstrip in the town of Okello that the rebels have been using to import most of their military supplies. South Sudan accuses Sudan of arming Yau Yau's rebellion in order to block South Sudan's plans to build an oil pipeline through Ethiopia to a port in Djibouti. Okello is in South Sudan's south-east Pibor County, where Yau Yau hails from.

"This airstrip has been used by Khartoum intelligence to transport and supply arms and ammunition to David Yau Yau," Aguer said. "Some of the arms that were being dropped by Antonovs were captured, AK-47s. Some are broken, some are in good condition."

South Sudan peacefully broke away from Sudan in 2011 but is still dealing with violence inside its own borders.

Military battles and fights between tribes kill dozens of people in the country with alarming frequency. After decades of war with Sudan, the country is flooded with assault rifles.

Aguer said the southern military, known as the SPLA, would continue to "deal with the militia group" and that it would be a matter of time before the rebels are cleared from Pibor County in the state of Jonglei.

A dispute over oil transit fees with Khartoum led South Sudan to shut down its oil industry last year. The dispute left South Sudan looking for alternative ways to transport its crude, including a possible route from Jonglei through Ethiopia to the port of Djibouti and a second one to the Kenyan port of Lamu.

The two governments recently reached an agreement that is supposed to restart South Sudanese exports through Sudan's oil pipelines.

Khartoum has repeatedly denied having any ties to Yau Yau's rebels and counter-accuses Juba of supporting rebels in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

Yau Yau first rebelled against Juba after he failed to win a parliamentary seat in the 2010 general elections. He accused the ruling party of rigging the vote. In 2011 he accepted an amnesty offer by President Salva Kiir and returned to Juba where he was promoted to an SPLA general. But last year he fled to Khartoum and started a rebellion against South Sudan's government in Pibor.