Khartoum Files Complaint with U.N. against S. Sudan

Sudan's government has lodged a complaint at the U.N. Security Council against South Sudan, accusing it of fomenting unrest in its northern neighbor, an official announced on Tuesday.

The complaint also accused South Sudan, which obtained its independence in July, of "supporting rebels" against the Khartoum government, foreign ministry spokesman Al-Obeid Merwah said in a statement.

"Our representative to the U.N. delivered to the president of the Security Council a complaint against the government of South Sudan," he said.

"The government of South Sudan is still causing problems in Sudan by supporting, training and encouraging rebel movements in South Kordofan and Darfur," Merwah said.

South Kordofan remained under Khartoum's northern administration when South Sudan became independent in July, but clashes have pitted Nuba rebels once allied to southern rebels against the Sudanese army.

In the Darfur region of western Sudan, bordering South Sudan, some rebel groups maintain links with the SPLM, the ruling party in the south.

South Kordofan was a battleground during the north-south civil war from 1983 to 2005, and Khartoum is trying to reassert its authority within its borders redrawn following the formal independence of South Sudan on July 9.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday that the Sudanese armed forces have launched deadly air raids on civilians in rebel-held areas of the Nuba Mountains that may amount to war crimes.

The rights groups said that during a week-long visit, their researchers saw almost daily bombing raids by government aircraft on villages and farmland.

They said the researchers had investigated a total of 13 air strikes in the Kauda, Delami and Kurchi areas which had killed at least 26 civilians and wounded more than 45 since mid-June.

No evident military targets were visible near any of the air strike locations the researchers visited, they said.

"The relentless bombing campaign is killing and maiming civilian men, women and children, displacing tens of thousands, putting them in desperate need of aid and preventing entire communities from planting crops and feeding their children," said HRW's Africa director Daniel Bekele.

Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera said: "The international community, and particularly the U.N. Security Council, must stop looking the other way and act to address the situation.

"Indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas and restrictions on humanitarian aid could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The research team completed its South Kordofan visit before the announcement by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on August 23 of a unilateral two-week ceasefire by government forces.

But the rights watchdogs said that reports from on the ground suggested that the government was continuing to bomb civilian areas.

In Darfur, at least 300,000 people have been killed and 1.9 million people have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 between non-Arab rebels and the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime, the United Nations says.

Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.

Following a relative lull, there have been sporadic clashes there since December between rebel groups and government forces that have forced more than 70,000 people to flee their homes.