admin“We didn’t have any troops in El-Ahmier”, said Sudanese army spokesperson Sawarmi Khaled Saad, denying that weapons were seized.
Lodi said fighting had also resumed over the past two days further south at Taruje near the disputed southern border.
Access to the region is restricted, making independent verification difficult.
The SAF on Saturday denied bombing civilians in an operation which rebels said left 16 villagers and five government troops dead in an area about mid-way between El Ahmier and Taruje.
Oil-producing South Kordofan remained under Khartoum’s administration when South Sudan became independent in July, but fighting since June has pitted ethnic Nuba rebels, once allied to rebels in the South, against the Sudanese army.
A similar conflict is going on in nearby Blue Nile state.
The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of people have become internally displaced or otherwise severely affected because of fighting in the two states.
Refugees fleeing to Ethiopia and South Sudan are reporting food shortages and rising levels of malnutrition, with “particularly alarming” signs coming from rebel-held areas, Valerie Amos, the UN’s top emergency
aid official, said during a visit to Khartoum this month.
The government, citing security concerns, continues to bar UN and foreign aid workers from the warzone.
South Kordofan’s governor, Ahmad Harun, is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
Sudan and South Sudan, which became independent last July in a referendum that followed two decades of civil war, have accused each other of supporting rebels inside their respective borders.
Meanwhile, Russia is considering withdrawing its military helicopters servicing the UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan after voicing alarm at attacks on Russian personnel there, a senior UN official said.
The statement by Susana Malcorra, undersecretary-general of the UN Department of Field Support, came during a recent increase in tribal violence in a remote area of South Sudan that caused some 60 000 people to flee.
“My sense is that at this point in time, Russia is seriously considering whether to stay or to leave South Sudan,” Malcorra told Reuters in an interview.
The departure of Russia, which provides key services for the UN Mission in South Sudan, or UNMISS, could complicate matters in Africa’s newest country, an impoverished oil-producing state struggling to establish a functioning security sector that is under the control of the Juba government.
Until recently, Russia had eight helicopters that were being used by UNMISS, Malcorra said. After its utility helicopters were attacked by South Sudanese security forces last autumn, Russia decided in December to withdraw four of them and now appears to be contemplating the withdrawal of the other four, she said.
Russia’s UN mission acknowledged that Moscow was concerned about the poor security in South Sudan but said there was no point in speculating about its future plans with UNMISS, which has a mandated full strength of 7 000 military personnel, while negotiations with the United Nations were under way.
In a statement to Reuters, the mission said Russia was “alarmed” by attacks on utility helicopters operated by the Russian military for UNMISS.
“Recently the situation in providing security to the Russian helicopter crews has been deteriorating,” the mission said. — AFP-Reuters.
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