Sudan border deal reached

JUBA, Sudan, May 31 (UPI) -- An agreement has been reached on demilitarizing the border between northern and southern Sudan, the African Union said Tuesday.

However, the agreement reached Monday night does not specifically deal with the Abyei region that both sides claim, The New York Times reported.

The 12.4 mile-wide demilitarized zone would run about 1,240 miles. A group comprised of representatives from each side would monitor security arrangements but how that would be accomplished was unclear, the Times said.

"The agreement paves the way for further negotiations on key security issues between the parties, to be convened by the A.U. panel within the week," an African Union statement said.

Setting the internal north-south border is important because the South is to split off into an independent nation July 9.

Whether the border agreement takes hold remains to be seen and there are doubters on both sides, the Times said.

"The question is, whether the Khartoum army and intelligence implement it?" Col. Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the southern military, told the U.S. newspaper. "We doubt it very much."

Rabie A. Atti, a spokesman for the northern government in Khartoum, said the pact could lead to "peaceful coexistence" between the two sides but he also said the northern forces would not be pulled out of Abyei.

The United Nations said Tuesday humanitarian operations in Sudan are focusing on tens of thousands of civilians uprooted by the recent clashes in Abyei that have claimed dozens of lives since January.

The World Food Program had been supporting 62,000 people before the clashes began, and now has about 6,000 more people to help.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said a field visit to Abyei last week found the town virtually emptied of its normal population of 50,000 to 55,000 inhabitants.

"Large numbers of fighters were present on the streets. Pilfering was openly going on, with people apparently organizing batches of stolen belongings," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.

"A number of villages just south of Abyei were burning."