Oil-rich city targeted as Sudan bids to take back seized land

Two Sudanese warplanes bombed the oil-rich city of Heglig, as long-range artillery targeted southern army positions in the disputed town, said southern army spokesman Colonel Philip Aguer.

Col Aguer also said Bentiu in South Sudan’s Unity State was hit and that the conflict has spread to several southern states, including Western Bahr el Ghazal.

He said the rival ground troops had not engaged this week. With its MiG and Antonov planes, Sudan still has a huge advantage in terms of air power, which even South Sudan’s military spokesman admits the South’s forces can do little but “take precautions” against.

“Today they bombed our positions and the oil installations in Heglig,” he said. “We are waiting for them in the killing zone and they are not coming.”

But he said the north’s army is now 14 miles from Heglig, which is claimed by Sudan but was seized last week by South Sudanese forces in fighting that southern officials say killed at least 240 Sudanese soldiers and 19 South Sudanese troops.

Sudanese officials also claimed yesterday to have seized an area sympathetic to South Sudan.

Col Aguer said the clashes are a “terrible escalation” of the border conflict that began before South Sudan broke away from Sudan last year. Fighting along the border has been near constant over the past two weeks.

The Sudan Media Centre also reported yesterday that Sudan’s army took control of Mugum, a stronghold of the southern army in Blue Nile state, which is near South Sudan’s border.

The government news service quoted an “informed” source from the 4th Division as saying the division raided Mugum on Sunday, killed 25 rebels and seized weapons and equipment.

Fighting erupted in the disputed region of Abyei in May last year, just months before South Sudan declared independence.

Rabie Abdelaty, a spokesman for the Khartoum government, ruled out peace talks with the south, saying it would hurt national pride if Sudan did not take back Heglig by force. Sudan earlier this month pulled out of scheduled talks.

“Our people are angry,” he said. “This is not a time for diplomacy. This is a time for pushing them and letting them know that they are irresponsible. This is war. Our forces want to teach them a lesson.”

Some analysts believe current hostilities will take their full course before the north and the south can consider coming to the negotiating table, if at all.

“It’s not a senseless war,” said Angelo Izama, a Kampala-based political analyst. “There’s unfinished business on both sides. There cannot be a diplomatic solution to the current hostilities.”

But rather than sparking all-out military confrontation, each side’s aim may now be to target oil facilities and wait for their opponent to crumble under armed insurgencies, popular unrest and fuel shortages.

The two countries have already driven their economies to the brink of implosion since the South split away, cleaving the vital oil industry in two.

Combined crude output has fallen from around 500,000 barrels a day before partition to around 50,000.