Fighting lays waste to disputed Sudanese town

ABYEI, Sudan — Smoke still rises from charred huts and the only people left behind in this town of 30,000 in an oil-rich region in Sudan are the looters and the army. The worst fighting in years between Sudanese government forces and former southern rebels has laid waste to Abyei.

The fighting, which broke out two weeks ago, threatened a 2005 peace treaty that ended a two-decade civil war between north and south in which 2 million people died. That agreement created a unity government between north and south and left Southern Sudan a semiautonomous region with its own government and military forces.

Abyei lies just north of the disputed boundary line with southern Sudan in a volatile region that remains contested despite the peace agreement. It is coveted by both north and south because of its oil resources and green fields used for grazing cattle.

The fighting in Abyei flared as the United Nations warned of a dangerous escalation of violence on another Sudanese front — the Darfur conflict. Earlier this month, a Darfur rebel group staged an attack just outside the capital Khartoum for the first time since that conflict in western Sudan began in 2003.

Journalists who visited Abyei on Friday with the U.N. under heavy security saw a ghost town where devastation was almost total.

The town's dirt roads were strewn with plastic chairs, beds and clothes, apparently dropped by frenzied looters. Fires still raged in some huts.

Looters, who roamed the streets freely, and Sudanese government soldiers appeared to be the only people left in the town.

U.N. officials believe that the 30,000 residents and 20,000 more from neighboring villages fled at the height of the fighting, in mid-May, which erupted over a personal argument between government soldiers and the former southern rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, according to officials.

The U.N. says another 40,000 in neighboring villages may also be on the move, fearing the spread of hostilities.

Jehangir Qazi, the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in Sudan, said the violence that flared in Abyei could easily spread and threaten the entire peace accord.

"It just doesn't exist anymore," he said of Abyei after visiting the town. "It is absolute devastation. It is totally charred."

Since the peace deal, many ethnic Africans who fled Abyei during the civil war have returned. Now, they are fleeing again.