20110505
reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Soldiers from north Sudan's army clashed with southern forces in the oil-producing border region of Abyei, killing 14, the United Nations said on Tuesday in the latest violence in the contested region.

The United Nations said it was unclear who had started the fighting late on Sunday but north and south blamed each other. Analysts say Abyei is one of the most likely places for conflict to ignite prior to the secession of southern Sudan in July.

A north Sudanese army convoy of six vehicles with mounted machineguns entered the border region on Sunday, Abyei's chief administrator Deng Arop Kuol, a southerner, told Reuters.

"They had no authorisation," he added, referring to an internationally-brokered agreement that only a special joint north-south force should patrol Abyei.

"Shooting broke out after an army major insisted on entering and police stopped the convoy ... This was a plan to invade," Kuol said.

But Sudanese Interior Minister Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamad told Reuters southern police forces had attacked the convoy first.

He said the convoy had been sent to reinforce the joint north-south force after the southern army had earlier sent more troops to the region, a charge the south denies.

"The (southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement) SPLM brought its component from the joint forces, but when the (northern) Sudanese Armed Forces brought its components it was attacked," he said.