In Tense Sudan, Divisions Resurface

Abuk, echoing many southerners' suspicions, suggested that Garang's helicopter could have been sabotaged in the air by terrorists or mercenaries on board.

But Adel Ismail, 45, an Arab merchant waiting wearily at the airport three days after being chased from his shop, said northerners and southerners alike respected Garang and did not want him dead.

"They've put in their minds that we killed Garang," Ismail said, his eyes watering. "I came to Juba to work after the peace deal. Everything was good here."

On Monday, Ismail said, he ran two miles to an army barracks, fleeing a mob of angry youths. On the way, a southern African woman hid him and made him tea. "The southerners are not all bad," he said, looking depressed.

In the eerily quiet dirt streets of Juba, hundreds of heavily armed government troops patrolled Wednesday and Thursday with AK-47s and grenades hanging from their belts. Antiaircraft guns bristled on the airport roof.

Under the peace deal reached in January, the government is scheduled to scale down its military presence and hand over control of the city within two years. Southerners said they view Garang's burial here, in a city they long fought to claim, as an important political gesture.

But Juba did not seem ready for the tens of thousands of mourners expected to arrive for Saturday's funeral.

Few women and children ventured into the rubble-strewn streets, and the few shoppers found prices for sugar and flour had suddenly doubled. Jane Martin, 30, bought a basket of burned onions to cook for her seven children.

"The prices are high. In the night, we don't sleep well," Martin said. "When there are gunshots, my children run and hide under the bed."

She glanced nervously around the burned market, at the government troops and the barbed wire surrounding Freedom Square, and at the rebel troops driving by in pickup trucks. Then, gripping her basket of onions, she turned and hurried home.