In a briefing on Feb. 15, Amum said the renegade faction of SPLA was
headed by former senior officer George Athor, who has been accused of
massacres in the south. Amum said Athor's militia was attacking civilians
throughout the oil-rich state of Jonglei in wake of his election loss in
2010.
"His guns are coming from Khartoum," Amum said.
The fighting in the south came in wake of a pledge by Sudanese President Omar Bashir to honor the results of the referendum on southern secession. More than 95 percent of voters approved a resolution for southern independence. Formal independence was scheduled to take place in July.
Athor has been identified as a senior SPLA commander who fought the
Khartoum regime in the 1990s. In 2010, he lost in a bid to become governor
of Jonglei and later accused the Southern People's Liberation Movement of
fraud.
Officials said many of the victims in Jonglei were Sudanese who had
returned to the south to vote in the referendum in January. They said
the Bashir regime was seeking to destabilize the south through militia
violence.
"We are a society that is traumatized," Pamum said. "Guns are in a lot
of hands."