Sudan on Thursday described the alleged sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in south Sudan as "outrageous" and said it would launch its own investigation into the affair.
The UN said on Wednesday it was investigating 13 cases of serious misconduct including sexual abuse and exploitation in south Sudan.
Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said on Wednesday that UN peacekeepers and civilian staff were raping and abusing children as young as 12 in southern Sudan. The paper said it had interviewed 20 young victims in the south Sudan capital Juba.
"The first indications of sexual exploitation emerged within months of the UN force's arrival and the Daily Telegraph has seen a draft of an internal report compiled by the UN children's agency UNICEF in July 2005 detailing the problem," the paper reported on its Web site.
"We are very concerned. It is outrageous," foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig said.
"If anyone has committed such crimes they should face the full weight of the law," he added.
He said the Khartoum government would launch an investigation into the matter. Any UN personnel found guilty of such crimes would be dealt with by the UN and not under Sudanese law.
A 14-year-old boy identified only as Jonas told the newspaper: "I was sitting by the river the first time it happened."
A 13-year-old boy told the newspaper he was lured to a UN car with the offer of cash, abused and dumped by the side of a road.
More than 11,000 UN police and troops are in Sudan to monitor a north-south peace deal, which will mark its second anniversary next week.
Sudan's north-south civil war, Africa's longest, ended in January 2005 with a peace deal which paved the way for democratic transformation, power and wealth sharing. The UN peacekeepers are there to monitor implementation of the deal.
UN spokesman George Somerwill said the UN would be meeting yesterday with the government of southern Sudan. He said the UN took these kinds of allegations "very, very seriously indeed."
The allegations are likely to further hamper efforts by new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to deploy peacekeepers to Sudan's western Darfur region, where a separate four-year-old conflict has killed an estimated 200,000 and driven 2.5 million from their homes.
Khartoum rejects a UN resolution authorizing 22,500 UN troops and police to deploy to Darfur to take over from the struggling African Union force.
Sudan's government has likened it to a Western invasion and an attempt at colonization.
Asked if the sex abuse allegations would affect Khartoum's decision on allowing UN troops in Darfur, al Sadig said: "This is exactly why we are so concerned."
Four UN peacekeepers in southern Sudan have been sent home in the past year following investigations of alleged sexual abuse.
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