SPLA: Khartoum continues with unceasing aggression

On Saturday, SPLA Brigadier General Gabriel Puok Wunoah said that the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) fail to respect a UN Security Council resolution passed last Wednesday.

The two-day ultimatum, which called both sides to cease hostilities within 48 hours, expired on Friday.

The governments of Sudan and South Sudan promised to comply with the resolution, yet both sides swap accusations of continued hostilities.

Wunoah says that eight bombs hit an SPLA base in Panakuach on Friday -- charges which Khartoum denies. Sudan’s army spokesman al-Sawarmi Khalid says no shot has been fired from our side and no attacks or raids have been launched”, according to Reuters.

A woman and her seven-months-old child were injured in Lalop on Saturday when an Antonov plane dropped 12 bombs, according to William Gatjang Gieng, Commissioner of Rubkotna County.

Nyachieng Nguot Teny, a 20-year-old injured woman, is convinced that SAF deliberately targets the civilian population in South Sudan”, like her son Dak Tab.

Gieng accuses the Khartoum government of terrorising the citizens of South Sudan” and the International Community and the African Union of keeping silent about Saturday’s attack on civilians in Rubkotna County.

Lalop is a civilian village only and I cannot understand why the Sudanese government is bombing them”, says Gieng. The International Community has to put pressure on Khartoum to stop these bombardments” and they have to give Omar al-Bashir a very good warning”, Gieng demands.  

Peter Gatkuoth, the Medical Director of Bentiu Hospital, confirms admission of many patients injured by air raids on Unity State in the past weeks. He says the consequences of the air raids are disastrous to human live”.

Tension between Sudan and South Sudan escalated in early April, when South Sudan seized an oil field in Heglig, a disputed border area which both sides claim. South Sudan later withdrew its troops under international pressure.

Sudan and South Sudan are yet to resolve several contentious post-independent issues, a dispute over oil revenues, border demarcation and the repatriation of Southerners living in Sudan.
 
Tensions over these unsettled issues continue to flare, resulting in loss of lives, displacement of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure.