By Jonathan Adams A flare-up this week in an oil-rich flashpoint in central Sudan is jeopardizing a shaky 2005 peace accord between north and south.

Thousands of people have fled Abyei town after two days of clashes between Sudanese government troops and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).
"There was fighting in the evening yesterday," SPLA spokesman Maj Gen Peter Parnyang told IRIN on 15 May. "Fighting is still continuing up to today."
. Three people, he told the UN Radio Miraya, were killed.

Nairobi/Khartoum - The United Nations special envoy for Sudan, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, on Friday expressed concern over the situation around the southern city of Abyei, calling for protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure in the disputed oil region.
Qazi made the call despite a ceasefire that was agreed upon on Thursday by Sudanese government forces and former fighters of the southern Sudanese resistance group, SPLA.
ast few days had shown that the problems in the oil-rich region could cause the greatest difficulties in the implementation of the peace agreement between the north and the south, he added.