Southern Sudan Suffers a Blow as Fighting Ends a Truce

Southern Sudan Suffers a Blow as Fighting Ends a Truce

By JOSH KRON

KAMPALA, Uganda — Fresh battles between renegade soldiers and the southern Sudanese military in recent days have left more than 100 people dead in southern Sudan, sending tremors through a heavily militarized region that only days ago celebrated the final results of a referendum to separate from the rest of the country.

The southern Sudanese military clashed on Wednesday and Thursday with hundreds of rebel fighters loyal to a renegade general, George Athor; the fighting killed 105 people in the state of Jonglei and broke a one-month armistice. The military said Friday that the fighting had dissipated, but it remained unclear how long the calm would last.

“The cease-fire is broken,” said a spokesman for the southern Sudanese army, Philip Aguer. “This was a surprise move.”

The fighting comes less than a week after official results of the southern referendum were announced, with more than 98 percent of the nearly four million voters choosing to separate from northern Sudan after decades of civil war. During the war, rebels fought together in a coalition against the north but have at times turned against one another.

This vast region is considered to be one of the poorest, least-developed places in the world, and it is teeming with soldiers. Security is routinely singled out as the most important priority in southern Sudan right now.

According to the 2005 peace treaty that brought the civil war between the north and the south to an end, a total of 180,000 soldiers from north and south Sudan were supposed to demobilize and reintegrate into society. But so far only about 400 soldiers across the entire country have completed that process, and the United Nations has been blamed for hindering the country’s demobilization program through fiscal mismanagement.

While the southern Sudanese government and military have expressed confidence about their grip on the region in the period before independence — expected to be declared on July 9 — there are a number of signs that the fragile status quo could crumble.

Last weekend, a rebellion by southern Sudanese soldiers in Sudan’s joint-integrated units in Upper Nile State left 50 people dead, including children and a United Nations employee.

Then on Wednesday, near the town of Fangak in neighboring Jonglei, two southern Sudanese army trucks were patrolling a road when they were destroyed by mines; 16 soldiers were killed in the blast and the ensuing battle. The southern Sudanese military said the mines were laid by rebel soldiers loyal to General Athor, who led a rebellion last year when he was not elected governor of Jonglei.

He signed a cease-fire with the southern Sudanese government in January, just days before the referendum, paving the way for what international election observers called a free, fair and peaceful vote.

Under the terms of the cease-fire, General Athor’s men were expected to assemble at agreed-upon points, including one near Fangak, and rejoin the military. But the fighting reignited on Wednesday, catching the southern Sudanese military off guard.

By Thursday afternoon, the rebels had captured the town, and they held it for a number of hours before being driven out. When the fighting finally stopped, the southern Sudanese military said, 50 soldiers and 39 civilians had been killed, and 65 people had been wounded.

The fighting kept medical aid workers from helping the victims. “It is imperative that immediate access to urgent lifesaving medical care is granted by the relevant authorities to both civilians and all parties to the conflict,” the aid group Doctors Without Borders said in a statement.

The southern Sudanese army said that it did not know why its forces had been attacked, but that it did not want a return to war.

“We still want reconciliation with George Athor,” said Mr. Aguer, the southern military spokesman. “We want people to start reconstructing their lives.”