| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Horn |
| South Sudan death toll tops 1,800 in 2011 |
| 2011-07-02 |
| JUBA, Sudan: More than 1,800 people have died this year in violence across southern Sudan, the United Nations said on Friday, ahead of the regionÂ’s independence next week. Some 1,836 people have been killed by tribal or rebel violence, including 273 in the first two weeks of June, according to the UN figures, amounting to more than 300 violent incidents spread across nine of the southÂ’s 10 states. The under-developed south, roughly the size of France, has been plagued by violence since southerners voted overwhelmingly in January to separate from the north and form their own nation on July 9. The independence vote was the climax of a 2005 peace deal that ended a civil war which killed about 2 million people. North and south Sudan have fought for all but a few years since 1955 over ethnicity, religion, ideology and oil. More than 260,000 people are now displaced in the south, the UN figures showed, which includes about 100,000 who fled the disputed Abyei region. Analysts say that even if the fragile peace with the north holds, the south risks becoming a failed state if it cannot bring its humanitarian situation and rampant internal insecurity under control. At least seven rebel militia are at war with the government, the UN said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |