Siege of South Sudan force continues for 3rd day

JUBA, Sudan, Sep 8 (Reuters) The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) are besieging 61 southern Sudanese soldiers for the third day in a row in central Sudan, a south Sudanese official said today.

Diem Kuol, spokesman for the Southern People's Liberation Army (SPLA), said almost 1,000 SAF soldiers had surrounded the south Sudanese platoon as it was moving across the South Kordofan region on Thursday.

The SPLA soldiers, who Kuol said were heavily armed, had been asked to hand over their uniforms and weapons.

''Disarming them will not be easy,'' he told Reuters.

The stand-off in Africa's largest country comes two years after a north-south peace agreement in 2005 ended more than 20 years of war between the northern government and the former rebel SPLA.

Under the deal, the south formed a semi-autonomous government and was allowed to maintain its army, together with the north's Sudan Armed Forces, and both armies were required to withdraw to their respective sides of a 1956 north-south border.

Both sides have accused the other of failing to redeploy before a July 9 deadline.

The Sudan Armed Forces, who confirmed the detention of the group but reported the number of soldiers as 45, said the latter were carrying small arms illegally under the peace agreement.

''They were carrying small arms north of the 1956 border.

According to the agreed framework of the Naivasha Treaty, it is illegal to have SPLM/A forces north of the 1956 border,'' said a high-ranking SAF official who declined to be named.

''If any northern forces strayed south of the 1956 border, it is the right of the SPLM to do the same and arrest or detain them,'' he added.

Kuol said the southern soldiers had been travelling between two militia groups, one in South Kordofan and one in the south of Darfur as part of a plan to move some of the soldiers south to join the SPLA.

Militias who were operating under the support of either side during the civil war have to choose to join either the SPLA or SAF, according to the peace deal.

''They are not southerners, they are Arab,'' the SAF official said. ''But they said they are soldiers in the SPLM.'' He added that talks between the armed forces and the besieged group were continuing.

''I think it is a simple issue and I expect it to be resolved,'' he said.

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