20100214
reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - An angry mob killed three traders in Sudan's flashpoint town of Abyei, officials said, underlining growing tensions in the area claimed by both the country's north and the south, which is about to secede.

The crowd gathered after a soldier tried to walk into Abyei's main market with a gun on Saturday, and fired into the air after police turned him away, the region's chief administrator Deng Arop Kuol told Reuters.

Young people from the area's Dinka Ngok tribe, linked to the south, turned on northern traders, he added. Two traders were beaten and one shot, Kuol said.

"There was a commotion. When people heard gunfire everybody felt that something dangerous was happening. An angry mob attacked the traders. It is something that came out of the general anger of the situation," he added.

Abyei was a battleground in the decades-long civil war between north and south Sudan that ended in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The accord promised two referendums -- one on whether southerners should secede and the other on whether Abyei residents wanted to join the north or the south.

Southerners overwhelmingly voted to declare independence in their vote in January and are due to secede on July 9.

Abyei's vote, scheduled to take place on the same day, never happened after bitter disputes, including one between the Dinka Ngok and Abyei's north-linked Misseriya nomads over who was qualified to vote.

Northern and southern leaders have promised to hammer out a political settlement.