Sudan declares state of emergency on South border
KHARTOUM (AFP) – Sudan declared a state of emergency along its border with South Sudan on Sunday after month-long border clashes, as four foreigners allegedly arrested in the Heglig oil region remained in custody.
President Omar al-Bashir issued a resolution declaring the emergency in the border states of South Kordofan, White Nile and Sennar, the official SUNA news agency said. Other parts of the border were already under a state of emergency.
The measure suspends the constitution and imposes a trade embargo against the South.
Commerce across the frontier has unofficially been banned since South Sudan‘s independence last July, but the emergency formalises that prohibition.
Bashir‘s resolution “gives the right to the president and anyone with his mandate” to establish special courts, in consultation with the chief justice, SUNA said.
The courts will handle criminal and “terrorist” cases, it added.
Nationalist feeling has intensified in Sudan after South Sudan occupied the north’s main Heglig oil field for 10 days, a move which coincided with Sudanese air strikes against the South.
It was the most serious fighting since the South’s independence and raised fears of a wider war.
Sudan declared on April 20 that its troops had forced the Southern soldiers out of Heglig, but the South said
Category: South Sudan News
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