Sudan town faces new fears

The Sudanese town of Abyei on the faultline between north and south is slowing re-emerging from the ashes of its destruction two years ago but aid groups are bracing for more violence as a vote on its future looms.

Around 100 people were killed in the May 2008 clashes between northern and southern forces and 50,000 fled their homes.

An estimated 8,000 have returned as reconstruction work has seen Abyei get its first tarmacked street, electricity pylons alongside its straw huts and the reopening of its clinic.

But as a referendum looms in January that will decide whether Abyei and the oil resources of its surrounding district remain part of north Sudan or join an autonomous or independent south, there are fears of a return to fighting.

In the village of Agok, south of the town, aid groups including the Irish charity GOAL and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have drawn up a contingency plan to ensure the necessary supplies are in place to look after civilians in the event of fresh clashes.

"Our intent is to be ready in case of mass casualties," Patricia Carrick, who runs the MSF clinic in Agok, told AFP.

At the centre of the dispute between northern and southern leaders are the Misseriya -- Arab nomads who use land in Abyei for seasonal pasture.

They have threatened to derail the referendum if they are not granted the same voting rights as the Ngok Dinka, settled farmers seen as favourable to joining the south.

Talks between the two sides broke down in Ethiopia last month, prompting northern officials to say it would now be impossible to hold the vote on time.

Southern leaders have called for the district to be ceded to the south without a vote if the referendum is not held.

Abyei's chief administrator, Deng Arop Kuol, expressed strong opposition to the idea of the vote not going ahead as stipulated in a landmark 2005 peace deal between north and south that ended Africa's longest-running civil war.

"The real concern is with the government. The government would like to have the land for the oil and they are using the Misseriya."

The head of the United Nations humanitarian office, Valerie Amos, visited Abyei and Agok on Saturday for talks with Kuol and with aid officials.

"People in need of humanitarian assistance must be assisted irrespective of which side of the border they find themselves," she said.

The United Nations is concerned that any return to fighting in Abyei might spill over to other northern areas which saw fighting during the 1983-2005 civil war, like the Nuba mountains of neighbouring Southern Kordofan.

"If there is violence in Abyei, it might lead to a knock-on effect involving Southern Kordofan," a UN official said.