AFP/Khartoum
The leaders of north and south Sudan are to meet in Addis Ababa today to discuss the crises in the border regions of Abyei and South Kordofan, China’s envoy for African affairs said yesterday. “There will a meeting tomorrow between President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir and his Vice President Salva Kiir in Addis Ababa to discuss the issues of Abyei and South Kordofan,” Liu Guijin said after meeting Bashir in Khartoum. Suna state news agency said the talks would also be attended by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who heads an African Union team trying to resolve outstanding issues between north and south Sudan ahead of southern independence on July 9. Heavy clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and northern members of the former southern rebel army have raged all week across South Kordofan, the north’s only oil-producing state, with intense fighting in and around the state capital Kadugli. Witnesses also reported heavy fighting in Deleng, around 100km north of Kadugli, yesterday. The violence in central Sudan has poisoned the atmosphere of the north-south negotiations which have been taking place in Ethiopia, according to a source close to the talks. The information minister for southern Sudan’s Unity state, which neighbours South Kordofan, said earlier that five civilians had been killed in SAF air strikes south of the border. “There was an Antonov aerial bombardment on Thursday morning ... in a place called Payam Jau, in Parieng county, on the Unity state side of the border,” Gideon Gatpan said by phone. “Now it is confirmed that five people were killed and 11 wounded. They were aiming at the positions of the JIUs (northern elements of the southern army who have moved south). Instead they hit these civilians,” he said. Gatpan said the area had not seen Antonov air strikes for six or seven years. A spokesman for the UN mission in Sudan, meanwhile, said the security situation in South Kordofan remained of “grave concern”, with localised fighting, sporadic artillery fire and continuing military build-ups reported in the past 24 hours. “The intensity of the fighting since it broke out on June 5 has caused a large displacement of civilians and an unverifiable number of casualties,” Kouider Zerrouk said. He said the SAF’s closure of Kadugli airport since Friday morning threatened to dangerously affect UN humanitarian operations in the region and called on the army and the state governor to allow unconditional access for UN flights.