Sudan’s south accused the northern army of carrying out an air strike on an army base in southern Sudan on Wednesday in an attempt to derail a Jan. 9 referendum on southern independence.
As the plebiscite approaches, leaders of north and south Sudan have accused each other of building up troops in the border region. While the south is seen likely to vote for secession, the north would like to keep the country whole.
If confirmed, it would be the second time this month the north conducted aerial raids in the south. On the first occasion, the southern army said northern forces accidentally dropped a bomb on its territory while fighting rebels from Darfur near the north-south border.
“Today SAF [northern army] helicopter gunships attacked our position, injuring four soldiers and two civilians,” southern army spokesman Philip Aguer said.
“The SAF is trying to drag Sudan back into war again and to disrupt or prevent the referendum,” he said, but the southern army would not respond militarily.
The SAF denied it attacked the south on Wednesday.
“This is absolutely not true. We have not attacked anywhere near the border,” SAF spokesman al-Sawarmi Khaled said.
A UN spokesman had no immediate information on the report.
Kuol Athuai, the commissioner for the area of the attack, Aweil North, told reporters by telephone: “This was the northern army — they attacked a village and an army base.”
Relations between north and south Sudan have been tense in the buildup to the southern vote. Sudan’s economy depends on oil, located mostly in the south, and the Khartoum government does not want to lose an important source of revenue.
In New York, UN diplomats said on Wednesday the UN was considering sending 2,000 new troops to south Sudan to boost the 10,000-strong UN Mission in Sudan force to a maximum of 12,000 troops.
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