South Sudan's president has today vowed that the nation will not withdraw its troops that this week entered a disputed border region with Sudan.

MORE than 3,000 people were killed in South Sudan in brutal massacres last week in an explosion of ethnic violence that forced tens of thousands to flee, a local official said yesterday as the UN increased patrols.

ARMED men burned and looted the flashpoint town of Abyei yesterday, as Southern Sudan’s military said the northern army is moving to carry out a “full-scale war” in the region.

Northern Sudanese troops appeared to have seized the contested town of Abyei, a UN spokeswoman said, increasing fears of conflict as the country’s south prepares to become the world’s newest country.

More than 80 people were killed when rebels attacked cattle herders in Southern Sudan, while hundreds marched in the southern capital to protest at the unresolved status of a volatile border hotspot.

Two rebel groups clashed with Southern Sudan’s military ahead of the region’s independence referendum, resulting in at least nine deaths, and a top security chief said today that he suspected the groups were trying to depress voter turnout.

Four people were killed in an attack by a rebel group on forces in southern Sudan, a military spokesman said today.

The United Nations is preparing for the possibility of 2.8 million people being displaced if fighting breaks out over southern Sudan’s independence referendum, according to an internal report.