Landmine Kills Five in Sudan's Kordofan

A landmine killed five people and wounded 13 in Sudan's South Kordofan, state radio reported Wednesday, the eve of peace talks for the war-torn state on the South Sudan border.

"Sudanese Red Crescent Society says five people were killed and 13 wounded in a landmine explosion" in the north of the state, Radio Omdurman said in an SMS message which gave no further details.

Sudanese media almost never give casualty reports from Kordofan or Blue Nile, where government troops and rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement - North (SPLM-N) have been fighting since 2011.

The report came ahead of the first peace talks in almost a year between the SPLM-N and the government. Negotiations are to take place Thursday under African Union mediation at the pan-African bloc's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

There are no figures for how many people have died in the Kordofan and Blue Nile fighting, but the United Nations says an estimated 1.2 million people have been displaced or otherwise affected.

Access to the war zone is restricted, making verification of claims difficult.

Neither the Red Crescent nor Sudan's army spokesman could be reached for comment.

But rebel spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi told Agence France Presse: "We don't plant any landmines."

According to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, an initiative of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, South Kordofan is the most heavily-mined area of Sudan.

There were 48 confirmed mined areas as of May, 2013, the Monitor said in a November report.