Sudan's Abyei dispute: Bashir vows to remain

Click to play

James Copnall says the latest clashes "clearly reveal the tensions" between the north and south

Continue reading the main story

Sudan: Set for divorce

• Abyei: Trigger for war?
• Trouble brewing
• Happy birth day
• One country or two?

Sudan's president has said he will not withdraw troops from the disputed Abyei border region seized over the weekend.

President Omar al-Bashir said the area belonged to the north.
He added his army would respond to any possible "provocation" from the army of South Sudan, due to become an independent state on 9 July.
Northern troops seized the territory after southern forces had ambushed a convoy of its forces in the area, killing 22 people.
Analysts fear the the dispute could reignite the north-south conflict, in which some 1.5 million were killed.
The status of Abyei was left undecided in the 2005 peace deal and a referendum, due in January, on whether the area should be part of the north or south has been postponed indefinitely.
'Grave consequences'
The two sides fought for decades before agreeing to share power and hold a referendum on southern independence.
"Abyei is northern Sudanese land," President Bashir said, according to Reuters, adding: "We will not withdraw from it."
Earlier on Tuesday, a southern minister in Sudan's national government resigned, saying "war crimes" had been committed in the region.
Luka Biong Deng, a senior official in the south's ruling party, originally from Abyei, said he could no longer work with Mr Bashir's party in the unity government.

Some 20,000 people have now fled the town of Abyei, which has been left deserted, aid workers say.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said she had received reports that northern forces had been shelling and bombing civilian areas.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the former rebels who now govern South Sudan, has urged the northern troops to withdraw from the town.
The US envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman, has warned that the takeover could jeopardise possible debt relief worth billions of dollars.
He also said that Washington would find it difficult to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism unless troops were withdrawn from Abyei.
Under these sanctions Sudanese companies are banned from using US currency - a major obstacle to international trade.
The US has previously suggested that a peaceful transition to independence for the south and a negotiated solution to the separate conflict in Darfur could normalise relations.