SOUTH SUDAN: Sudan is accused of dropping bombs on a refugee camp in South Sudan's Unity state, increasing tensions across the border

Record ID: 357434

  • Title: SOUTH SUDAN: Sudan is accused of dropping bombs on a refugee camp in South Sudan's Unity state, increasing tensions across the border
  • Date: 11th November 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF CHILDREN AT THE CAMP AERIAL SHOT OF DISPLACED CAMP WITH SMOKE OF EXPLODED BOMB
  • Embargoed: 26th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Sudan, South Sudan
  • Country: South Sudan
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVADHH9GAT4JH10MBZP0UC0JEL7G
  • Story Text: A refugee camp in South Sudan's Unity state was bombed on Thursday (November 10), South Sudan officials and witnesses said, threatening to raise tensions with Sudan.
    A Reuters correspondent heard a large explosion in the Yida refugee camp, then saw a crater about two metres (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 later.
    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. The camp is less than 25 km (15 miles) from the border with Sudan.
    Fire crackled in the dry grass around the crater about 100 metres away from an aid agency compound in Yida camp.
    "They don't want any life in Juba Mountains and now they are expanding the war to South Sudan Republic, I don't know why," said Yousif Ismail, a refugee from the Nuba mountains.
    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.
    Violence along the poorly defined border since South Sudan's independence in July has strained ties between the South Sudan and Sudan. They have accused one another of backing rebel groups on their sides of the border.
    "We are escaping from there for security and safety but we are still followed by that criminal man who is wanted by the ICC," Yousif Ismael added, referring to Sudan President Al-Bashir.
    Fighting has broken out in Sudan's Blue Nile state this year. Blue Nile and South Kordofan 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.
    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 the insurgents.
    But a teacher at the camp diputes what Sudan is saying and accused Al-Bashir as the person behind the bombing.
    "We have seen Bashir has bombed in four places and after that we thank god that we are safe and nobody is injured," said a teacher at the camp.
    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.
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