South Sudan repulses Sudanese offensive on Heglig

Sudan's army said it was advancing on the disputed oil-rich town of Heglig A Sudanese plane bombed Bentiu, capital of South Sudan's oil-rich border state of Unity, on Saturday, killing five civilians and wounding six, a local government spokesman said.

Gideon Gatfan, spokesman of the Unity State government, said one bomb fell beside a car market near a bridge which was the target of the raid.
South Sudan claimed to have repulsed an offensive by Sudanese forces on its positions near the disputed border oil town of Heglig. South Sudan Vice-President Riek Machar said the fighting took place on Friday 30km (18 miles) north of Heglig.
The Sudanese government says it expects the next few hours to be decisive.
South Sudanese Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin told Reuters on Saturday: "They tried to attack our positions north of Heglig last night but it was contained. Heglig is [still] under our control."
South Sudan's military spokesman, Col Philip Aguer told Agence France-Presse two Sudanese tanks had been destroyed.
The Sudanese army has not yet commented on the fighting and there is no independent confirmation of the South's claims.
Sudan's Defence Minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein told state TV on Saturday there would be "good news soon", saying there were thousands of fighters in the Heglig area "to meet the enemy and defeat it".
South Sudan's government spokesman and information minister Dr Barnabas Benjamin told Arabstoday on Saturday that Southern President Salva Kiir was ready to meet his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir in any place specified by the latter, considering that a meeting was the only solution to avoid an all-out war between the neighbours.
He stressed that his country was clinging to the deployment of international forces on the border between the two states, especially in Heglig. The proposal has been opposed by Khartoum which noted that previous agreements with Juba had not been committed to. The agreements were based on establishing 10 border points and five monitoring points in which UN forces would be deployed.
Benjamin said his country suggested deploying international forces on the border with the north in oil-rich Heglig adding that “this will reveal who is infiltrating whose borders.”
Benjamin denied that Khartoum and Juba were in direct negotiations except for through the African Union.
Sudan's foreign ministry spokesperson ambassador Obaid Murawah said that the principle of setting conditions was totally unacceptable, noting that the South had previously refused the deployment of international monitors.
Murawah said: “Any agreement would be of no use if there is no clear border.”
A source in Juba told Arabstoday that the South’s government was now debating the how to manage security and political situation, and its response to the international and regional backlash to its occupation of Heglig.
South MP Joseph Aban Deng said in a phone conversation with Arabstoday: “Juba did not originally aim to occupy Heglig, but it had to do so with the motive to stop Khartoum’s assaults on the border areas.” He stressed that “Juba is ready to implement any agreement on condition that this agreement would guarantee its security.” He added that in order to achieve this goal, Juba may accept to withdraw from Heglig.”
Sudan's army said on Friday it was advancing on the disputed oil-rich town of Heglig in an attempt to oust South Sudanese forces from the area, after the South said it would withdraw only if theUnited Nations intervened.
Fighting between Sudan and South Sudan this week has brought the two closer to a reigniting an all-out war, nine months after the South seceded under a peace deal that ended decades of civil war.
South Sudan seized the Heglig oilfield near the border on Tuesday, sparking widespread condemnation. The African Union denounced the occupation as illegal and urged the two sides to avert a "disastrous" war.
Heglig, which South Sudan claims as its own, is vital to Sudan's economy because it has a field accounting for about half of its 115,000 barrel-a-day oil output. The fighting has stopped crude production there, officials say.
Sudan's military, which has vowed to strike back if the South's army (SPLA) did not withdraw, said its forces were on the outskirts of Heglig and pushing forward.
"The armed forces are advancing toward Heglig town," military spokesperson al-Sawarmi Khalid Saad told reporters in Khartoum. "The situation in Heglig will be resolved within hours."
South Sudanese armed forces spokesman Philip Aguer said he had not received reports of fighting in Heglig on Friday, but that the situation there should become clearer on Saturday.
"If they are advancing, the SPLA is ready to defend itself and its territories," he said by phone. "When they (Sudan's army) were pushed out of the area, they were occupying it by force, so if they want to come back by force, they can try it."
Speaking in Nairobi, Pagan Amum, South Sudan's lead negotiator at talks to resolve the dispute with Sudan, said his country was ready to withdraw under a UN-mediated plan.
"On the ground, we are ready to withdraw from Heglig as a contested area ... provided that the United Nations deploy a UN force in these contested areas and the UN also establish a monitoring mechanism to monitor the implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement," he told reporters.
Amum said there were seven disputed areas and called for international arbitration to end the dispute over these regions.
The loss of Heglig's oil output is another blow to Sudan's economy, which was already struggling with rising food prices and a currency depreciating on the black market.
Amum said the Heglig facilities were "largely" damaged by fighting, but did not give details.
"Resumption of oil in that area will only come when the UN deploy their forces between the two countries and in the disputed areas and when the two countries reach agreement to resume oil production," he said.
Landlocked South Sudan shut down its own 350,000 barrel-perday oil output in January in a row over how much it should pay to export crude via pipelines and facilities in Sudan.