Maker Abior

The Enough Project has released a video statement from an eye witness of the razing of Maker Abior village who said he saw combatants wearing SAF uniforms as well as other armed actors who appeared to be Janjaweed.

“Arabs attacked the village. Some were wearing SAF uniforms. Some were dressed like Janjaweed,” said Kuol Alor Kuol, a 73-year-old eye witness and resident of the village. “We will stay here because it is our land. This is our ancestors’ land.”
 

Last week, as militants torched three villages in the contested region of Abyei, Satellite Sentinel Project captured the first images confirming reports that the villages were deliberately burned.

Now the Enough Project has obtained video footage taken from the razed villages of Maker Abior and Todach soon after the attack. The video shows huts still smoldering and dead bodies of southern police being loaded into the back of a pickup truck.

In the aftermath of a wave of violence in Abyei that left over 100 dead and saw the systematic burning of three villages just north of Abyei town, tens of thousands of civilians have fled while residents still in town are angry, disillusioned, and anxious, according to on-the-ground reporting and visuals from Enough photographer Tim Freccia. Freccia, who has been based in Abyei since violence broke out early last week, reports that the situation in the contested and highly-volatile border region today is relatively quiet, if fraught with tension.

Four straight days of intense fighting in Abyei region continued into today, a strong reminder that a political solution to the region’s highly disputed status is urgently needed. Fear of violence spreading has prompted large numbers of residents in Abyei town to begin to leave, according to an Enough Project source in Abyei.