Sudan faces armed rebellion in oil state
Southern Kordofan is important to the north because it has the most productive oil fields that will remain under Khartoum's control after the split. The south could take as much as 75 percent of Sudan's 500,000 barrels per day of oil output.
It also borders Abyei and Darfur, a western region that is the scene of a separate insurgency.
Analysts have predicted fighting could break out in Southern Kordofan ahead of the split, especially after an NCP official was named the winner of a gubernatorial election last month. The south said the vote was rigged, which Khartoum denied.
Officials with the south's dominant party, the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, have said the clashes started when the north tried to disarm armed groups in the area.
The northern army has blamed the southern-aligned groups for starting the fighting.
The militias are still referred to as members of the Southern Peoples' Liberation Army -- the southern military -- although Juba says they are no longer part of their army and cannot ask them to withdraw south because they are northern.
Southern Sudan voted to secede in a January referendum, the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the north and south.
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- Unpaid Debt A comprehensive overview of the role of the Lundin Consortium in the oil war. ECOS calls upon the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate whether, as a matter of international law, Lundin, OMV and Petronas 'were complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by others during the period 1997-2003.’ In response, the Swedish Public Prosecutor for International crimes opened a criminal investigation into ‘links between Sweden and the reported crimes’.
- In Depth For more specific information about the Lundin court case please visit the Unpaid Debt dossier.
