3,000 Rebels Surrender in South Sudan after Amnesty

Around 3,000 rebels in South Sudan surrendered Friday after a presidential amnesty, an official in Unity, an oil-producing state that borders Sudan, said.

Around 100 trucks crossed over the border from Sudan into South Sudan's Unity state on Friday, following a presidential decree granting amnesty to six rebel commanders and their forces on Thursday.

"They came from Khartoum and there are about 3,000 of them and they are militia who have been fighting against the south," Unity state government spokesman Joseph Arop Malual told Agence France Presse.

It was not possible to independently confirm Malual's claims. But South Sudan's military spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP that a convoy of trucks and machine gun mounted vehicles had arrived in Unity state.

South Sudan split peacefully from the north in July 2011 with three quarters of the former country's oil after decades of civil war.

But the two sides have been accused of fighting a proxy war by funding rebels in each other's territory.

A statement issued Friday quoted South Sudanese President Salva Kiir giving "pardons to the forces that took up arms against the Republic of South Sudan". The amnesty took effect Thursday.

The decree named defectors from South Sudan's army (SPLA -- a former rebel movement turned regular army for South Sudan) Gordon Kong, David Yau Yau, Onyuok Ogot, Bapiny Monytuil Wicjang, Johnson Uliny and Munto Abhdalla Munto.

"These are all of the Khartoum-backed Southern militia leaders who have been waging rebellions to topple the SPLA since 2010" and "the whole cache of South Sudanese rebel leaders", said Jonah Leff, a South Sudan analyst for the Small Arms Survey that tracks rebel groups.

There was no indication that any of the six amnestied commanders had crossed over in person.

The amnesty follows a recent visit by Sudan President Omar al-Bashir to South Sudan, where he and Kiir both pledged to stop funding rebels on the other side of the border.