The death toll from drone strikes on Amiet common market in the disputed Abyei region has risen to 153 from 73, Yohana Akol Ngor, Abyei’s caretaker minister, told Radio Tamazuj on Wednesday.
Ngor blamed the Sudanese army for Monday’s attacks, which hit the market about 10 km north of Abyei town.
He said the victims had been buried in two mass graves, one east of the market and the other to the west, while some people remain missing.
“The total number of people who died as a result of the drone attacks is 153. Those are the bodies that have been buried. But there are people who are missing,” Ngor said.
He rejected reports that the death toll had reached 220, saying 153 was the confirmed number of fatalities.
Some bodies had been consumed by fire, Ngor said. 30 people are being treated in hospital for injuries, some of them in critical condition, he added.
The dead include Sudanese, South Sudanese and Somali nationals, Ngor said. Some shops at the market were still burning on Tuesday.
Amiet market, located in Ameth-Aguok County, is a major trading hub serving the Ngok Dinka and Misseriya communities. It also serves people displaced by the war in Sudan.
Abyei is disputed by Sudan and South Sudan. The dispute centres partly on the competing interests of the Ngok Dinka, the region’s principal resident community, which is largely aligned with South Sudan, and the Misseriya, predominantly Arab pastoralists who traditionally move through the area with their cattle.
Disagreements over whether members of the Misseriya community should be eligible to vote in a referendum on Abyei’s future have been a major obstacle to resolving the dispute.
Abyei, an oil-producing region under United Nations protection, has remained a source of tension since South Sudan gained independence in 2011.
The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement provided for a referendum in which Abyei’s residents would decide whether the region should remain part of Sudan or join what became South Sudan. The vote has never taken place because the parties failed to agree on voter eligibility and other outstanding issues.
Agreements signed in 2011 established interim administrative and security arrangements for Abyei, but its final status remains unresolved.
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