Sudanese troops are marching towards Heglig – says Sudan military spoke person, Al-Sawarmi

Sudan’s army said on Friday it has launched a counter-attack towards Heglig town in its main oil-producing region, which South Sudanese forces seized earlier this week.

“Now we are moving towards Heglig town” and are “close,” army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said in a statement.

“The situation in Heglig is going to end in coming hours,” he told reporters, adding that South Sudan had tried but failed to control “all of South Kordofan state.”

Malaak Ayuen, deputy spokesman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in the South, said his forces had expected a fight-back.

“Yes we know they are moving towards Heglig,” he said. “But there is no problem … Let them come”.

World powers have urged restraint after the latest round of heavy fighting that broke out on Tuesday with waves of aerial bombardment hitting the South, whose troops seized the Heglig region from Khartoum’s army.

Southern President Salva Kiir and his Khartoum counterpart, Omar al-Bashir, have accused each other of seeking war, prompting a UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire.

Sudan had vowed to react with “all means” against a three-pronged attack it said was launched by South Sudanese forces.

The clashes, the worst since South Sudan won independence in July after one of Africa’s longest civil wars, have brought the two former foes the closest yet to a return to outright war.

Neither army has provided casualty figures but one Southern soldier in Bentiu said earlier: “There are so many bodies at the front line, so many dead” that it is impossible to bury them or bring them back.

When the South separated, Khartoum lost about 75 percent of its oil production and billions of dollars in revenue, leaving the Heglig area as its main producer. Its output roughly fulfilled domestic requirements.

But Tuesday’s attack caused a total production shutdown in the area, said Ahmed Haroun, governor of South Kordofan state, in which Heglig is located.

Despite international calls, Juba has refused to withdraw from Heglig unless certain conditions are met, including Khartoum’s pullout from the neighbouring Abyei region it holds and which, like Heglig, is claimed by both sides.

International arbitrators ruled three years ago that Heglig was not part of Abyei, a decision the South agreed with although it does not concede that Heglig is therefore northern.

Kiir, in a speech to parliament on Thursday, said Bashir had “announced a total war with the Republic of South Sudan.”

And Bashir said South Sudan had “chosen the path of war, implementing plans dictated by foreign parties who supported them during the civil war.”

Parliaments in the two nations have called on citizens to take up defences in case of war.

Journalists are not allowed to report independently in South Kordofan, but an AFP reporter on a government-run trip saw soldiers on Thursday lined up at the airport in the provincial capital Kadugli.

Several military trucks and three attack helicopters were seen along with a large transport aircraft.

The unrest has prompted Khartoum to pull out of African Union-led crisis talks aimed at resolving the protracted dispute with Juba over oil, border demarcation, contested areas and citizenship issues.

In January, the landlocked South shut crude production — which made up 98 percent of its income — after Khartoum began seizing Southern oil in lieu of compensation for use of its export terminal and other facilities.

This week’s clashes follow border fighting that erupted last month between the neighbours, and which each side has blamed the other for starting.

World powers, including the African Union, United Nations, United States and China, have called for restraint and voiced deep concern at the escalation of violence.

http://news.yahoo.com/un-ceasefire-call-sudan-sudan-trade-accusations-032111909.html

Sudan army says moving on oil town seized by South

By Ulf Laessing and Khalid Abdelaziz

JUBA/KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s army said it was advancing on the disputed town of Heglig on Friday in an attempt to oust South Sudanese forces from the oil-producing area after the south said it would withdraw only if the United Nations intervened.

Fighting between Sudan and South Sudan this week has brought the two closer to a resumption of full-blown conflict, nine months after the south seceded under a peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

South Sudan seized the Heglig oilfield near the border on Tuesday, sparking widespread condemnation. The African Union denounced the occupation as illegal and urged the two sides to avert a “disastrous” war.

Heglig, which the south claims as its own, is vital to Sudan’s economy because it has a field accounting for about half of its 115,000 barrel-a-day oil output. The fighting has stopped crude production there, officials say.

Sudan’s military, which has vowed to strike back if the South’s army (SPLA) did not withdraw, said its forces were on the outskirts of Heglig and pushing forward. “The armed forces are advancing toward Heglig town,” military spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid Saad told reporters in Khartoum.

“The situation in Heglig will be resolved within hours.”

South Sudanese armed forces spokesman Philip Aguer said he had not received reports of fighting in Heglig on Friday, but that the situation there should become clearer on Saturday.

“If they are advancing, the SPLA is ready to defend itself and its territories,” he said by phone. “When they (Sudan’s army) were pushed out of the area, they were occupying it by force, so if they want to come back by force, they can try it.”

Speaking in Nairobi, Pagan Amum, South Sudan’s lead negotiator at talks to resolve the dispute with Sudan, said his country was ready to withdraw under a U.N.-mediated plan.

“On the ground, we are ready to withdraw from Heglig as a contested area … provided that the United Nations deploy a U.N. force in these contested areas and the U.N. also establish a monitoring mechanism to monitor the implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement,” he told reporters.

Amum said there were seven disputed areas and called for international arbitration to end the dispute over these regions.

DAMAGED FACILITIES

The loss of Heglig’s oil output is another blow to Sudan’s economy, which was already struggling with rising food prices and a currency depreciating on the black market.

Amum said the Heglig facilities were “largely” damaged by fighting, but did not give details.

“Resumption of oil in that area will only come when the U.N. deploy their forces between the two countries and in the disputed areas and when the two countries reach agreement to resume oil production,” he said.

Landlocked South Sudan shut down its own 350,000 barrel-per-day oil output in January in a row over how much it should pay to export crude via pipelines and facilities in Sudan.

Oil accounted for about 98 percent of the new nation’s state revenues and officials have been scrambling for ways to make up for the loss.

In Juba, about 200 people demonstrated at a government-organised protest against Sudan and in support of the occupation of Heglig, holding banners which read: “The people want the army to be in Heglig” and “They bomb children and women”.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday added its voice to the chorus of demands that Sudan and South Sudan stop the clashes. Sudan’s U.N. ambassador said South Sudan must heed the call or Khartoum would “hit deep inside the south.

The African Union, which had been helping mediate talks between the two countries over oil payments and other disputed issues before Khartoum pulled out on Wednesday, also condemned the south’s occupation of Heglig.

“The Council is dismayed by the illegal and unacceptable occupation by the South Sudanese armed forces of Heglig, which lies north of the agreed border line of 1st January, 1956,” African Union Peace and Security Council Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra told reporters after a meeting late on Thursday.

The south seceded from Khartoum’s rule last year but the two sides have not agreed on issues including the position of the border, the division of the national debt and the status of citizens in each other’s territory.

Some 2 million people died in Sudan’s civil war, fought for decades over ideology, religion, ethnicity and oil.

(Additional reporting Yara Bayoumy in Nairobi and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz and James Macharia; Editing by Mark Heinrich)