Militia fights South Sudan army

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South Sudan's army and militiamen have exchanged heavy gunfire in the town of Malakal, according to local officials and eyewitnesses.

It reportedly involves the southern army and a militia led by Gabriel Tang, who was backed by Khartoum during Sudan's 21-year north-south civil war.

Fighting between South Sudan's army and elements in the Tang militia killed 150 people in Malakal in 2006.

A BBC correspondent says tensions between north and south remain high.

The BBC's Peter Martell in the South Sudan capital Juba adds that the former civil war adversaries clashed last year in flashpoint border areas.

The north-south conflict cost an estimated 1.5 million lives and ended in 2005 with the setting up of an autonomous secular government in the south.

"This [fighting] is because Tang arrived yesterday in Malakal. The UN tried to persuade him to leave but he refused," southern army commander James Hoth told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

'Tanks'

He said southern army soldiers from a special joint unit of both northern and southern troops stationed in Malakal under the peace accord were involved in the fighting.

But it was not immediately clear if any northern forces had joined in the clashes.

An eyewitness told Reuters he had seen tanks on the streets of the town.

South Sudan Information Minister Gabriel Changson Cheng said the fire-fight had been on and off all day and there was no official confirmation of any deaths as yet.

The confrontation came as Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir made a rare visit to the south's capital.

The International Criminal Court will announce on 4 March whether it is to indict him for alleged war crimes committed in the separate conflict in the western region of Darfur - a move correspondents fear could worsen the fighting in Darfur and even drag South Sudan back to war.