SAF Claims Fight In Southern Kordofan Is To Disarm SPLA

Khartoum
17 June, 2011 (Sudan News Radio)

The Sudan Armed Forces said that the on-going fighting’s in southern Kordofan is to disarm the SPLA forces in the north.

Earlier the SAF had refuted allegations that the fight started when their forces attempted forcefully to disarm the SPLA forces in the state before the end of the interim period.

SAF spokesperson Colonel Al-Sawarmi Khalid was speaking in a press conference in Khartoum on Thursday.

[Al-Sawarmi]: “I want to reassure that, it is not allowed starting from the 1st June, even now it is not allowed in the north to any other forces which possess Arms, apart from SAF, and the battle we are engaging now in southern Kordofan is because there are forces carrying arms in the state.”

In response the SPLM in southern Kordofan says that the presence of the SPLA is according to the CPA, accusing SAF of starting the fight in the state.

The adviser to the chairman of the SPLM in southern Kordofan Gamer Deleman spoke to SRS on Thursday.

[Gamer Delman]: “Our presence is according to the signed CPA, however SAF spokesperson Al-Sawarmi and their chief of staff General Ismat, stated earlier of forceful disarmament to the SPLA forces, and they practically started by disarming the SPLA in Um-Dorain on the 3rd of this month. All what happened on that day is that the SPLA started self-defense.”

The United Nations on Tuesday said that more than 53 thousand people have fled, following the heavy fight, including bombardments and artillery shelling, in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan border state.

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