Sudan’s SPLM/A rebels on Saturday claimed seven children have been injured in a bombing attack by government planes on the village of Muarakatiha in the country’s Eastern Equatoria region.
”Twelve bombs were dropped by a high-flying Russian-made Antonov plane on the village at 11am on Friday, injuring seven children, two seriously, and killing 30 cattle,” said Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) representative Samson Kwaje.
The claim could not be independently verified immediately.
”The action by the Khartoum government is against the civil protection agreement it signed with the SPLM/A that prohibits attacks in areas inhabited by non-combatants,” Kwaje said.
He claimed the pact to protect civilians was signed in March. It is the second time in two weeks that the rebels have accused the government of bombing southern Sudan.
They claimed last week that 17 civilians were killed and scores wounded when the air force bombed four villages in southern Sudan’s Western Upper Nile state on May 25 and 26, a claim later denied by Khartoum.
Southern Sudan has been ravaged by war and famine since 1983, when the mainly Christian and animist SPLA/M took up arms against the Arab and Muslim regime in Khartoum.
The government has also been fighting northern groups who took up arms in 1995 in a conflict which has left between killed one million and 1,5-million people dead and four million others displaced. – Sapa-AFP