South Sudan blames Khartoum for bombing refugee camp on Monday, Jan 23rd, 2012
9 min read* United Nations says 14 missing from bombing of camp
* Rebels say Khartoum launched second attack north of border
* Incident deepens arguments over oil revenues (Adds South Sudan comment, background)
By Tom Miles and Hereward Holland
GENEVA/JUBA, Jan 24 (Reuters) – An air strike on a refugee camp near South Sudan’s border with Sudan wounded one boy and left 14 people missing on Monday, the U.N. refugee agency said.
South Sudan blamed the attack on Khartoum, which has repeatedly denied carrying out such strikes on its neighbour.
South Sudan seceded from Sudan in July under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war, but the two countries have remained at loggerheads over issues including oil, debt and fighting along the poorly drawn border.
Several bombs were dropped on Elfoj, a camp of about 5,000 refugees used as a transit site, less than 10 km from the border on Monday morning, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Definitely it is Khartoum forces … there is no one else who can bombard South Sudan’s territory,” a South Sudan military spokesman said of the attack on Elfoj. “This is not the first time.”
Rebels fighting Khartoum’s forces said Sudanese government helicopters and ground forces launched separate attacks on the Sudan side of the border on the same day, although the report was impossible to verify independently.
Sudan’s military was not immediately available to comment on either incident, but Khartoum has always denied carrying out such attacks, including one on the Yida refugee camp in November, which the United Nations blamed on Khartoum.
Fighting between Khartoum’s forces and rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement-North (SPLA/M-N) began in June, before South Sudan became independent in July, and have forced around 417,000 people to flee their homes and 80,000 to cross the border into South Sudan, and into camps such as Elfoj.
The SPLM is now the ruling party in South Sudan but it denies supporting SPLM-N rebels across the border.
The insurgency against Khartoum is a remnant of a two-decade civil war in which many in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states fought with those now ruling South Sudan but ended up falling under Khartoum’s control.
However, fighting around the border also feeds into wider animosity over issues including the division of revenues from oil from South Sudanese fields which is exported through Sudan.
UNCHR did not apportion blame. It moved 1,140 people from the site, around 70 km (45 miles) to the south after the air strike.
Details about what the South Sudanese spokesman described as the attack on rebels in the south of Sudan were sketchy but a U.N. source confirmed it had received reports of two helicopters attacking the Ullu area near the border.
An SPLM-N spokesman told Reuters the settlement of Danfona, just across the border from Elfoj, had been bombed.
“There is a big movement of Sudan Armed Forces from (Blue Nile state capital) al-Damazin towards the Bau mountains. They are coming with heavy weapons and air cover from helicopter gunships,” the spokesman told Reuters by telephone.
Tension between Sudan and South Sudan further escalated on Monday when South Sudan began shutting down oil production, accusing Sudan of stealing $815 million worth of crude that it piped to its northern neighbour for shipment.
(Writing and additional reporting by Alexander Dziadosz and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Ben Harding)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/24/southsudan-bombing-idUSL5E8CO2LL20120124
South Sudan: UN condemns refugee camp air raid
The UN has denounced the bombing of a camp housing some 5,000 refugees in South Sudan near the border with Sudan.
A boy was injured and 14 other people went missing during the air raid in El Foj in Upper Nile state on Monday, the UN refugee agency said.
A Sudan army spokesman told the BBC that Sudanese forces had not carried out any bombing raids in the area.
South Sudan split from Sudan last July and since then their relationship has deteriorated.
Both countries accuse the other of backing rebels operating in their territories and it is not the first time South Sudan has been bombed – there were attacks in Upper Nile state and Unity state last year.
Refugees fled
The UNHCR says a plane dropped several bombs on Monday morning which landed on the transit site for those who have fled the conflict in Blue Nile over the border in Sudan.
“Bombing of civilian areas must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Mireille Girard, UNHCR’s representative in South Sudan, said in a statement.
The BBC’s James Copnall in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, says the UN did not say who was responsible, but the refugees will almost certainly suspect the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Blue Nile is one of three border areas – along with South Kordofan and Abyei – where fighting has broken out since South Sudan’s independence.
Many rebels in these regions fought alongside southerners during the decades-long civil war that ended with Khartoum agreeing to the south’s independence.
Relations between Khartoum and Juba are clearly at breaking point. Since South Sudan won independence last July, there has been no end of trouble along their border. At times their armed forces have clashed, using tanks and aircraft, but no all-out conflict.
But the dispute over oil could push relations over the edge. South Sudan has decided to close its oil production after Sudan seized crude oil piped through its territory to reach international markets. Both countries depend almost entirely on oil for their revenues. They have few alternatives to fall back on.
For South Sudan there is the option of finding a route to the sea via Kenya. There are reports that the authorities in Juba will announce the building of a pipeline through Kenya next week. Another possibility is taking the oil in tankers by road. Both are hugely ambitious, but South Sudan argues that it survived years of war and could survive whatever comes its way.
For Sudan, the reduction in oil revenues has already caused difficulties, with people complaining of rising prices.
Both Sudan and South Sudan have much to lose by continued confrontation, but at the moment there seems little appetite in either capital to find a compromise.
Sudan’s army spokesman Khalid Sawarmi said Sudanese forces had been recently involved in fighting against rebels in Blue Nile in the village of Aroum.
“We attacked them and drove them out of this place. [We] did not use any planes or Antonovs there,” he told the BBC.
Following the strike on El Foj, most people have now fled the area or have been helped to relocate by the UN, the agency says.
The authorities in Upper Nile state say they do not have first-hand confirmation of an incident at El Foj.
However Upper Nile’s Information Minister Peter Lam Both did accuse Sudan of carrying out another air raid in the state on Sunday.
He told the BBC that three people were killed and four wounded in Khor Yabous, near the border with Sudan.
He also said South Sudan’s army had fought off an attack by militias around this time.
The UN says more than 78,000 people have fled Sudan since last August because of fighting in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Our correspondent says the latest incident highlights the bad relationship between the two countries as well as the difficult situation many refugees face.
Recently the focus has been on oil resources, with South Sudan deciding last week to shut down its production rather than, as it sees it, have some of its oil stolen by the north, he says.
The two sides are currently discussing how to share their oil resources at talks in Ethiopia.
But whatever the full truth of the matter, the greatest concern to many is security not oil, our reporter says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16705278
UPDATE 1-South Sudan blames Khartoum for bombing refugee camp
Reuters
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| South Sudan: UN condemns refugee camp air raid BBC News The UN has denounced the bombing of a camp housing some 5000 refugees in South Sudan near the border with Sudan. A boy was injured and 14 other people went missing during the air raid in El Foj in Upper Nile state on Monday, the UN refugee agency said. |
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