Border Tensions Flare Before South Sudan Secedes

Oil-rich Abyei, claimed by both the north and south, is at the heart of fighting as South Sudan prepares for independence.

A clash in a town straddling what will be the border between Sudan and South Sudan come July has already displaced 15,000 people from their homes as tensions flare between the two sides. Abyei, claimed by both the north and south, largely due to the nearby oilfields, has been set ablaze, and government forces have entered the town to quell the violence. The largely Christian and animist South Sudan overwhelmingly voted in January to secede from the mostly Muslim north. While the process has since been as peaceful as one can expect for a country whose last 30 years have been plagued by civil war, the violence in Abyei could inflame decades-old animosity between the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army and the army of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.