The oil-rich area experiences frequent bouts of violence from rival factions of an ethnic group throughout each international locations.
Six individuals, together with a senior native administrator, have been killed in an ambush by armed males within the Abyei area, claimed by each Sudan and South Sudan, native officers mentioned.
The oil-rich area experiences frequent bouts of violence, the place rival factions of the Dinka ethnic group – Twic Dinka from South Sudan’s neighbouring Warrap state, and Ngok Dinka from Abyei – are locked in a dispute over the placement of an administrative boundary.
Abyei Deputy Chief Administrator Midday Deng and his workforce got here beneath assault alongside the highway from Abyei to Aneet city after they had been coming back from an official go to to Rummamer county, the place they had been celebrating the New Yr, authorities officers mentioned.
“His driver and two bodyguards plus two individuals of nationwide safety had been all killed,” Tereza Chol, a South Sudanese lawmaker, advised Reuters information company.
Bulis Koch, info minister for Abyei Administrative Space, blamed the Sunday night assault on armed youth from Twic county of Warrap and mentioned the our bodies had not been retrieved as of Monday morning.
His counterpart in Warrap, William Wol, mentioned it was nonetheless early “to level fingers”.
The incident is the most recent within the area the place dozens had been killed in ethnic clashes in November.
Straddling an ill-defined border between Sudan and South Sudan, Abyei has been claimed by each international locations since Juba declared independence from Khartoum in 2011.
It has a particular administrative standing, ruled by an administration comprising officers appointed by each international locations.
South Sudan erupted into civil warfare shortly after independence, which pitted President Salva Kiir and his allies in opposition to his Vice President Riek Machar. A peace settlement signed in 2018 is basically holding, however the transitional authorities has been gradual to unify the assorted factions of the army.
