CLASHES IN SUDAN KILL 58

Clashes between south Sudan’s army and Darfuri Arab tribes took death toll to 58 people, raising tension along the north-south border as results of the first open elections in 24 years, officials said on April 25. Sudan’s oil-producing south was allowed to keep a separate army and form a semi-autonomous government in a 2005 peace deal ending more than two decades of civil war with the north. Southerners will vote in a referendum on Jan. 9, 2011 on independence. “There was movement from the Rizeigat (tribe) and from the SPLA (the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army). “I can’t tell you who attacked first but there was a massive clash,” Rizeigat Arab tribal leader Mohamed Eissa Aliu told media persons from South Darfur. The SPLA said they were attacked by the northern army (SAF) in Raja, a remote part of Western Bahr Al-Ghazal state, where at least five officials from the dominant northern National Congress Party (NCP) and four others were killed by an SPLA soldier during five days of voting which began on April 11.