10/10/2012 14:26 GMT
by Abdelmoneim Abu Edris Ali
KHARTOUM, Oct 10, 2012 (AFP) - A child was wounded from shelling around the capital of Sudan's South Kordofan state on Wednesday, a witness said, as rebel artillery fired fresh barrages in what they call a reaction to government bombing.
"This morning, four shells fell on the ground east of the town ... I myself saw one child injured because of today's firing," a Kadugli resident told AFP.
He said that on Tuesday night he also heard shelling, which other residents told him had hit a school compound.
"If they (the army) bomb our locations, then we will respond immediately," said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). "We are responding."
Lodi confirmed the rebels had shelled "inside Kadugli" on Tuesday evening.
An official of the UN World Food Programme, which has 16 staff in Kadugli, also reported that shells landed Tuesday and Wednesday but the army spokesman, Sawarmi Khaled Saad, denied the latest rebel firing.
Saad also said there had been no government bombing of insurgent positions.
A rare barrage against the government-held capital on Monday killed six women and children, Governor Ahmed Haroun was quoted by official media as saying earlier.
The United Nations condemned Monday's attack, which it called indiscriminate and reprehensible. One shell landed in the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) compound but failed to explode.
Lodi said the insurgents' artillery fire was self-defence in the face of government shelling and aerial bombardment of rebel positions, which continued Tuesday and Wednesday.
"Our target is military movements and compounds," but the government has placed them near schools, UN and similar facilities, he said.
The Kadugli shelling has coincided with talks there between the ruling National Congress Party and others about how to end the war which the UN says has displaced or severely affected hundreds of thousands of people.
The army has accused rebels of trying to disrupt the meeting but Lodi said there was no connection.
Ethnic minority insurgents from the SPLM-N fought alongside rebels from southern Sudan who waged a 22-year civil war which ended in a 2005 peace deal leading to South Sudan's independence last year.
Fighting erupted in South Kordofan the month before South Sudan separated.
The shelling comes after Sudan and South Sudan in late September signed deals on security and cooperation that they hailed as ending their countries' conflict.
The neighbours fought along their undemarcated frontier in March and April, sparking fears of wider war and leading to a UN Security Council resolution ordering a ceasefire and the settlement of unresolved issues, under African Union mediation.
Among the deals reached in Addis Ababa is agreement on a demilitarised border buffer zone designed to cut support for SPLM-N rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.
Khartoum accuses Juba of backing those insurgents, and the South in turn says Sudan has armed rebels in its territory.
A diplomatic source said the rebels may have wanted to disrupt the Kadugli peace conference but, after Addis Ababa, their action could also be an attempt to show strength as well as displeasure with the agreements which the government may use to "squeeze" them.
The rebels could have an interest in escalating the conflict so South Sudan would be dragged in again, said the source, declining to be named.
"I had expected them to try to derail the new relationship between Sudan and South Sudan. To do it this way, I'm not sure is very smart," he said, because it shows "they are capable of spreading the same terror as the government is."
str-it/hkb
© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse