Fighting has been raging between rival Sudanese forces today in Abyei, the flashpoint oil-rich area between the north and south whose status remains contested three years after the end of civil war.
Aid workers say there has been hours of fighting between government troops and southern ex-rebels, who fought Africa's longest civil war until reaching a fragile power-sharing peace agreement with Khartoum in 2005.
The clashes, involving gunfire and mortar rounds, reached just outside the gate of the main UN compound on the edge of town and severed a tentative ceasefire brokered by the UN late last week.
The impasse over Abyei - whose oil wealth is bitterly contested by Sudan's Arab north and ‘African’ south - has been one issue delaying implementation of the 2005 peace deal and without resolution could sink the agreement, analysts say.
The violence resumed early today when the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) attacked the impoverished town of Abyei, which lies at the heart of the contested region and which had been under government military control.
Last week the UN evacuated its entire civilian staff from the town following days of fighting between government forces and the SPLA.
There have been no clear casualty numbers for any of the clashes.
