South Sudan accuses Sudan of air strike on refugee camp
accuses
south sudan accuse sudan air strike refugee camp
South Sudan <m> accuses </m> Sudan of air strike on refugee camp
http : / / www . reuters . com / article / 2011 / 11 / 10 / us - southsudan - bombing - idUSTRE7A94OI20111110
South Sudan <m> accuses </m> Sudan of air strike on refugee camp
Thu Nov 10 , 2011 3 : 00pm EST
A refugee camp in South Sudan's Unity state was bombed Thursday , South Sudan officials and witnesses said , threatening to raise tensions with Sudan in the violence - plagued border region .
Taban Deng , the governor of Unity state , accused Sudan of carrying out the attack .
"These people ( Khartoum ) should be taken to book .
They should adhere to international laws and regulations , " he told reporters in Bentiu .
Sudan's armed forces denied they carried out the strike .
In a statement before the bombing , South Sudan's president Salva Kiir talked of Sudan's "pending invasion" of its neighbor .
Violence along the poorly defined border since South Sudan's independence in July has strained ties between the two former civil war foes .
They have accused one another of backing rebel groups on their sides of the border .
A Reuters correspondent heard a large explosion in the Yida refugee camp , then saw a crater about two meters ( 6 . 6 feet ) wide , an unexploded bomb wedged in the side of a school building and a white aircraft flying north .
Witnesses said there were three further explosions at 3 p . m . ( 1200 GMT ) .
Yida is a camp of about 20 , 000 refugees from the Nuba mountains region of South Kordofan , a state north of the border where rebels have been fighting Sudan's army since June .
Khartoum reported fresh clashes in the state Thursday .
There were no immediate reports of any casualties at the camp , less than 25 km ( 15 miles ) from the border with Sudan .
A spokesman for the Enough Project , an activist group that works to end genocide , said the group confirmed there were no dead or wounded .
"The refugees need to be safe and need to be protected .
They ran away from war .
They should not be pursued inside the territory of South Sudan , " Deng , the governor , said .
Al - Sawarmi Khalid , spokesman for Sudan's armed forces , said Sudan had not bombed anywhere in South Sudan's territory .
"South Sudan is a state in the United Nations .
We respect international law , and it's impossible that we would do that , " he said .
Khalid said Sudanese forces fought rebels in South Kordofan about five kilometers south of the town of Taludi Thursday , killing dozens and destroying a tank and other military vehicles .
Fighting has also broken out in Sudan's Blue Nile state this year .
The two states are home to tens of thousands of fighters who sided with the south during the war but were left in Sudan when South Sudan seceded , analysts say .
South Sudan split off into a separate country in July after voting overwhelmingly for secession in a January referendum , the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of war between north and south .
VOLATILE BORDER
Fire crackled in the dry grass around the crater about 100 meters away from an aid agency compound in Yida camp .
"They ( Khartoum ) don't want any life in the Nuba mountains , and now they are expanding the war to the South Sudan republic , " said Yousif Ismail , a refugee from the Nuba mountains , as he stood by the hole .
Last week , Khartoum submitted its second complaint to the U . N . Security Council , accusing South Sudan of supplying anti - aircraft and anti - tank missiles , ammunition , landmines and mortars to insurgents in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states .
Kiir denied those claims in a statement Thursday , calling them "smoke screens to mask Khartoum's own activities in support of the armed dissident groups that are fighting its proxy war against the Republic of South Sudan . "
The accusations were being used to justify Sudan's "pending invasion of the South , " Kiir said .
The two countries have yet to agree on how much the new nation will pay to use Sudan's oil pipelines and other facilities , which South Sudan depends on to export crude .
They also dispute control of the Abyei region .
Some 2 million people died in the north - south civil war , waged for all but a few years since 1955 over religion , ideology , ethnicity and oil .