Days of fighting between former rebels and government forces killed over 150 people and injured at least 400 in a southern Sudanese town, a U.N. official said Saturday. The battle was one of the worst breaches of a January 2005 peace accord that ended 21 years of civil war in the south.
According to the AP, aid workers said the fighting started when a government-allied militia tried to kill a local leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Malakal, a port town about 400 miles south of Sudan's capital, Khartoum. The former rebels retaliated, and large-scale clashes erupted Tuesday, with the two sides using artillery, tanks and armored personnel carriers. The former rebels captured Malakal's airport before U.N. officials brokered a cease-fire Friday.
"There are over 150 dead," said Peter Maxwell, the field manager in Malakal for the U.N. mission.
Maxwell said U.N. peacekeepers were patrolling the town and described the situation as "fairly calm" since Friday's cease-fire.
