Fighting broke out in and around the Abyei area just as voting in the Southern referendum began. No official details have been released yet, but unofficial UN statements report attacks on SPLA police posts by Misseriya gunmen on motorcycles and exchanges of heavy weapons fire elsewhere.

This is not just the work of herders armed with Kalashnikovs to protect their cattle from wild animals, nor a range war between rival Misseriya Arab and Ngok Dinka pastoralists. The attacks appear to have been inspired by false reports in the Khartoum media that the Ngok intended to unilaterally annex Abyei to the South on 9 January, the first day of the Southern referendum, and the day the citizens of Abyei should have begun voting in their own referendum. Misseriya gathering in the Southern Kordofan town of Muglad declared their intent to stop any such action.

To read the rest of the report, click here: THE ROAD BACK FROM ABYEI