Deadly outbreaks of fighting have continued to occur in parts of Southern Sudan and in the disputed area of Abyei, on the north-south border. On February 27th renewed fighting between the Sudan People's Liberation Army (Southern Sudan's army, SPLA) and forces led by a renegade SPLA commander, George Athor, reportedly caused 92 fatalities and a further 164 wounded. Earlier in February some 200 people were killed when forces loyal to Mr Athor attacked civilians and SPLA troops. Meanwhile in the Todaj area, near Abyei, seven people were killed on February 26th when militiamen from the Missirya tribal group attacked police. A local leader claimed that the attack occurred when police tried to disarm some Missiriya. Separately, Sudanese media reported that on March 1st 15 SPLA soldiers were killed in an ambush in the areas of Gok Machar and Safaha in North Bahr al-Ghazal, while on March 6th fighting broke out in Upper Nile State between SPLA soldiers and a militia allegedly loyal to the SPLM-DC. In a different kind of incident, in early February the GOSS co-operatives and rural development minister, Jimmy Lemi Milla, was shot and killed in his office in broad daylight by a former driver and relative, apparently for personal rather than political reasons.

The frequency and degree of armed clashes in the south and border areas (primarily Abyei) is disconcerting and is not for a lack of agreements meant to prevent such clashes. Following sporadic talks late last year, in early January a delegation representing Mr Athor signed a ''permanent cease-fire agreement'' with GOSS. However the agreement apparently did not satisfy Mr Athor (a former SPLA deputy chief of staff) or his supporters, and clashes appeared to start when Mr Athor's forces were expected to gather at agreed sites from where they would be integrated into the SPLA. In Abyei traditional leaders and officials signed two agreements in January in Kadugli, South Kordofan, which were intended to prevent further clashes. With UN facilitation, on March 4th the NCP and the SPLM signed an agreement to implement the Kadugli Agreements. In late February the governor of Unity State, Taban Deng, said that arrangements were being made to integrate southern soldiers leaving the national army, the Sudan Armed Forces and soldiers of Gatluak Gai, a renegade SPLA commander who broke away from the SPLA after the elections in 2010, into the SPLA.