S. Sudan forces attack Sudan troops at contested region

PanARMENIAN.Net - South Sudanese forces have made a diversionary attack near the contested Abyei region, state-linked media in Khartoum said, as international pressure mounted Wednesday, April 18 to pull the rivals back from the brink of all-out war, AFP reported.

The attack against Sudanese troops occurred Tuesday in the Bahr El Arab River area, 62 kilometres (38 miles) south of El Meiram, said the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) which is close to the security apparatus.

That area is just outside Abyei - a potential flashpoint - and is also along the South Darfur border with South Sudan's Northern Bahr El Gazal state.

The SMC quoted the district commissioner, Colonel Fathi Abd Allah Arabi, as saying the attack aimed to affect Sudanese military plans to recapture the Heglig oil field seized by South Sudan on April 10.

The United Nations, the United States and the European Union have criticized the South's occupation of Heglig, the north's most important oilfield, equally denouncing Sudanese air strikes against the South.

There are widespread fears the fighting, which began with skirmishes in the same area in late March and intensified last week, will spread.

It is already the worst since South Sudan won independence in July after a 1983-2005 civil war which killed two million people.