Envoy talks of "apocalypse" in Sudan town

By Cynthia Johnston

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Burned and looted huts stretch as far as the eye can see in Sudan's oil-rich town of Abyei, now empty of civilians, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Richard Williamson, said on Saturday.

Williamson, who toured Abyei on Friday, told Reuters he saw "scorched earth" devastation in the town where heavy fighting this month between northern and southern Sudanese troops sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing.

"It was really like an apocalypse. People were gone ... I saw no civilians," Williamson said by telephone from Darfur in Sudan's west, where he was meeting local leaders.

"Ninety percent of the huts had roofs burned off. There were clothes scattered here and there. It was just devastation," he said. "Whole neighborhoods were destroyed."

Northern and southern leaders have blamed each other for starting the fighting in the central town where more than 20 northern soldiers and an unknown number of civilians were killed.

Sudan's former north-south foes signed a peace deal in 2005 to end two decades of civil war fought along ethnic, religious and ideological lines and complicated by oil. But they have been at odds over its implementation, and both sides covet Abyei.

Williamson said he had heard estimates of the death toll in Abyei of between several dozen up to 100 civilians.

He said the Abyei fighting was also followed by looting by what appeared to be Misseriya tribesmen.