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Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has identified Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) equipped with heavy armor and artillery at the El Obeid Barracks, approximately 270 miles from Abyei town, possibly preparing for deployment to southern areas.
Based on analysis of available transportation logistics and the formation of the units, SSP has concluded that the forces there are capable of imminent forward movement.
Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: “We have a rough estimate of 15,000 people displaced in and around Agok town.”
Agok is about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Abyei. Abyei, claimed by both north and south, was due to vote on its future alongside a referendum on independence for the south.
Ethiopian government troops have killed more than 100 civilians, including a local U.N. worker, during a five-day military operation in the oil and gas-rich Somali Region, a rebel group said on Monday.
More commonly known as the Ogaden, the ethnic Somali province is home to a low-key insurgency led by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which has fought for independence since 1984.
Government officials could not be reached for comment.
“The Ethiopian army and its local conscripts killed more than 100 civilian people from May 10 - 15 in the area, (and it) is still on going,” the ONLF said in a statement.
African Union peacekeepers have seized territory from Somali insurgents in the capital Mogadishu in a new offensive that is slowly closing in on the rebels’ main stronghold, a force spokesman said on Monday,
Major Paddy Ankunda said the deployment of up to 3,000 more peacekeepers, which would take the AMISOM force to 12,000 soldiers within the next two months, would help squeeze the rebels out of the heavily populated Bakara market.
‘The idea is that when we get new troops, we should be able to expand our fronts and then realise a new effort to push the insurgents out of the … Bakara market which is their main source of finances,’ said the Ugandan officer, speaking to reporters from Mogadishu by video link.
Heavy battle between Somalia’s Ahlu Sunna Waljama ASWJ and Al shabaab fighters on Thursday broke out in parts of Galguduud region in central Somalia.
The two warring sides have used both heavy artillery barrages and light weapons, local residents said.
Most of the combat rocked the villages of Dhagahley and Hayale as fighters loyal Al shabaab movement attacked military bases manned by Ahlu Sunna there.
Libyan rebels captured the airport in the besieged city of Misrata on Wednesday, a rebel spokesman in Benghazi said.
Shamsiddin Abdulmolah of the Transitional National Council said the airport, located in the southern region of the war-torn city, fell to “revolutionaries” after opposition fighters nearby in Zlaitin were able to join their counterparts in Misrata.
The capture of the location is key for the rebels fighting the forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi since it would provide important access for humanitarian aid.
Two months of fighting and the ongoing shelling of the Misrata port have prevented most aid ships from docking there, leaving the city “at the forefront” of U.N. humanitarian concerns, a top U.N. official told the Security Council this week.
A south Sudan rebel group carried out a cattle raid in Warrap state that led to 82 deaths, women and children among them, a southern army spokesman said on Tuesday, the latest deadly violence to hit the nation in waiting.
Militiamen, under the leadership of Philip Bepan, attacked southern troops of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in neighbouring Unity state on Saturday, SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP. “They were chased away and went to Warrap state, where they attacked cattle camps on May 8, at a place called Balhom Weth. They killed 34 and wounded 45 civilians, including women and children,” he said.
“On the same day they were returning with the looted cattle, they were ambushed by the cattle herders. Forty-eight of the militia were killed and 48 of their new AK-47 rifles were taken,” he added.