February 19, 2012 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese army attempted to control a village in the troubled South Kordofan state near the border leading to a refugee camp in the Unity state of South Sudan, an independent team of local and foreign journalists reported.

On Saturday 18 February, Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in Toroji attacked the position of the rebel SPLM-N in the village of Angolo, said Ryan Boyette in a email to Sudan Tribune from South Kordofan where he works with an independent team of local journalists in the SPLM-N held areas.

An Antonov of the Sudanese army bombed the village of Angolo twenty for hour before the attack on 17 February.

The SPLM-N retook the location from the governmental troops which withdrew back to Toroji. However many civilians fled the village after the attack.

Ryan pointed out that the local population fear that the SAF is trying to control the road from Nuba to Yida in Unity State in the neighbuoring South Sudan, where there is large camp for Sudanese refugees.

Already on February 15,the Sudanese army ambushed a min-bus carrying civilians killings all the passengers of the vehicle.

SAF spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on the incident. But Khartoum usually denies attacks on civilians and accuses Juba government of supporting the Sudanese rebels who have historical relations with the South Sudan ruling party.

Sudan accuses the rebel SPLM-N of having a military camp for its fighter in Yida.

The Sudanese army bombed last November Yida and dropped at least two bombs near the Yida refugee camp which shelters over 20,000 people, according to the UN officials.

The head of UNMISS and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative to South Sudan, Hilde Johnson, said at the time that two bombs fell inside the camp and three outside of it.

According to the report, five people dead following a rocket attack on the village of Um Serdeba last Saturday when a rocket exploded near the house of a family killing the father, his three daughter and his son.

(ST)