Drone strikes that killed at least 30 people in Abyei last month have added a new and concerning dimension to security in the disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan, the UN Under Secretary General for Peace Operations, Jean Pierre Lacroix, told the Security Council on Thursday. He said the October 19 attacks were the first of their kind in Abyei, set off major fires, injured about 59 people and forced dozens of civilians from their homes, and that peacekeepers were still checking whether the death toll was an underestimate.
The strikes followed violence on September 15 in and around the Amiet Common Market, where clashes involving members of the Ngok Dinka, Misseriya and Nuba communities left 124 people dead and 40 injured, according to the UN account. Lacroix said the concentration of trade and people around the market was opening the door to criminal networks and armed groups, and that threats in Abyei increasingly reflect wider regional conflicts rather than local communal dynamics alone.
Sudan and South Sudan resumed formal talks in August through their Joint Political and Security Mechanism for the first time since January 2023, and a second meeting is due in Khartoum from November 8 to 10. Lacroix warned that the reported appointment by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of its own representative to the Abyei Joint Oversight Committee risks creating competing claims of authority and drawing the area further into Sudan’s war. The RSF appointment is reported in the UN briefing account and has not been independently confirmed here.
As the Council weighs the future mandate of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei, Lacroix said the conditions for any major change to the mission’s set up do not yet exist, and he called for stronger protection for peacekeepers against aerial threats. The Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Guang Cong, called the October strikes one of the deadliest incidents in Abyei’s history. Separately, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown warned that drone strikes inside Sudan are hitting power stations and fuel facilities. Status: reported from the UN’s own account of its briefing; attribution of the October 19 strikes remains open.