UN officials denounced Sudan for stepping up air strikes in South Kordofan on the south Sudan border on Tuesday, as religious leaders and rights activists alleged a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
“We are extremely concerned about the bombing campaign, which is causing huge suffering to the civilian population and endangering humanitarian assistance,” said Kouider Zerrouk, spokesman for the UN Mission in Sudan.
“The intensive bombing by SAF [Sudanese Armed Forces] in the past week is continuing in Kadugli and Kauda, where jet fighters dropped 11 bombs at 10:30 this morning, apparently targeting an airfield,” he added.
Two bombs had landed very close to the UN mission’s compound in Kauda, which is situated just 150m from the airstrip.
However, the SAF denied it was targeting civilians.
“We have a rebellion in South Kordofan and we are targeting the rebels,” army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said.
Heavy fighting between SAF troops and allied militiamen against fighters aligned to southern former rebel group the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has raged across the heavily armed state since June 5.
Fears had been growing among civilians of intensified SAF air strikes on former rebel strongholds, where the indigenous Nuba peoples fought with the SPLA during the devastating 1983 to 2005 civil war between north and south.
“We reiterate our call on the SAF, the SPLA and other armed groups who are involved in this conflict to allow immediate access to humanitarian agencies, stop military attacks against civilians, and respect and protect them in accordance with international law,” Zerrouk said.
The UN could not provide details of casualties, but a Sudanese human rights group late on Monday reported that Antonov bombers had killed more than 65 people in air strikes in the state over the past nine days.
The Sudan Democracy First Group (SDGP), in a six-page report, accused the northern army of pursuing a genocidal campaign in South Kordofan.
SAF soldiers, supported by the Popular Defense Forces, a feared civil war militia that now forms part of the Sudanese army, were targeting the Nuba peoples, the report said.
Reports were also emerging of alleged atrocities carried out by the armed forces on civilians and Sudanese UN staff.
The SDGP reported extra-judicial killings carried out during house-to-house searches for people suspected of sympathizing with southern-aligned troops.
It said two UN mission staff members were killed in front of the mission’s compound in Kadugli and another man’s body was found dumped there.
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