Sudan’s northern armed forces accused the South’s army on Friday of attacking a convoy of soldiers and UN peacekeepers in the disputed Abyei region, a flashpoint in the run-up to the South’s secession in July.
The southern army attacked the convoy with heavy arms, which had led to "big losses," the North’s army said in a statement carried by state news agency SUNA. The United Nations said earlier on Friday that unknown attackers had struck the convoy, wounding two people, according to Reuters.
South Sudan is due to become an independent state in July after overwhelmingly voting to declare independence from the North in a referendum in January. Tensions have built up in Abyei, an oil-producing border region claimed by both sides.
According to Agence-France Presse, shooting broke out as peacekeepers from the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) escorted northern troops out of the contested area, the latest outbreak of fighting in the impoverished but oil-producing district.
Deadly fighting and recriminations have flared in Abyei since January 2011, when the district had been due to vote on its future, alongside a referendum in the south that delivered a landslide for secession.
The plebiscite was postponed indefinitely amid deadlock between north and south over who should be eligible to vote.
A spokesman for the north’s Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), Sawarmi Khaled Saad, accused the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) of attacking its troops.
"Our forces and UN troops came under attack by the SPLA in Abyei area," Mr. Saad said, in a statement on Khartoum’s official SUNA news agency.
"There are substantial losses," he added.
But the SPLA denied responsibility.
"As the SAF were withdrawing their troops, there was firing," said SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer.
"From the reports we have, the shooting was started by the SAF firing on the police, and there was firing in return," Mr. Aguer added.
He could not confirm casualty details.
A senior UN official not authorized to speak to the media confirmed the shooting to AFP, but said that investigations were continuing into the incident.
Only special joint north-south units are allowed into Abyei, but recent satellite imagery showed that both sides have built up forces in the area.
However, both sides have agreed to keep their troops outside the district as part of efforts to restore calm.
Mr. Aguer said there were no SPLA troops in the area.
"SAF are looking for a pretext to fight and take Abyei," said Mr. Aguer. "There were no SPLA forces in the Abyei region."
Abyei’s future is the most sensitive of a raft of issues that the two sides are struggling to reach agreement on before the south is recognized as an independent state in July.
Earlier this month, at least 14 people were killed in clashes between northern and southern forces in Abyei. Both sides blamed each other for starting the violence.
Last month, Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, 67, said he would not recognize south Sudan as an independent state unless it gave up a claim on Abyei, made in the south’s draft constitution, according to Reuters.
Sudan’s total population is estimated at 42 million, with 8.5 million in the south.
Sudan’s north and south have fought for all but a few years since 1955 over oil, ethnicity, religion and ideology. The conflict, which ended with a 2005 peace deal, killed an estimated 2 million people and destabilized much of east Africa.