(CNN) -- Sudanese warplanes crossed a disputed border region to strike Monday in South Sudan, escalating fighting that threatens to return the neighboring African countries to full-scale war, a witness said.A Sudanese military commander, Kamal Marouf, was quoted by Radio Sudan's website as saying that more than 1,200 South Sudanese had been killed.
| It's a shame the South Sudanese can't get itself an air force. Too bad the Ruritanians aren't in a position to help. |
The report of the bombing of the towns of Bentiu and Rubkona came days after South Sudan pulled its troops at the request of the United Nations
...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country...
from the disputed oil-rich region of Heglig, though Sudan says its soldiers retook the area from South Sudanese soldiers.
Two fighter jets fired four missiles at the neighboring towns, divided by a river, hitting an open-air market and killing at least one person, said journalist Alan Boswell, who is in Bentiu.
Boswell was in his car crossing the bridge between the two towns when anti-aircraft fire erupted. That was followed, he said, by missile strikes. "I saw one boy who about 10 years old who was completely burned," he said. "There are other casualties."
The remains of thatch-covered stalls in Rubkona smoldered for hours after the morning bombing, Boswell said.
In a statement, South Sudan Information Minister Banaba Marial Benjamin said that three bombs had struck a market in Bentiu, killing two civilians, including a 12-year-old boy.
"The Security Council must take its responsibility and punish the Republic of Sudan for continuing this aerial bombardment and the violation of the airspace of Sudan," he said.
Soon after, the United Nations called for Sudan to halt the aerial bombings after what it described as four morning attacks, including one on the capital of oil-rich Unity state.
"These indiscriminate bombings resulting in the loss of civilian lives must stop," said Hilde F. Johnson, special representative of the secretary-general for South Sudan, in a statement.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
condemned the bombardment and called on Sudan to cease all hostilities immediately, a front man for the secretary-general said in a statement.
He called on Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir "to stop the slide towards further confrontation and urges both sides to return to dialogue as a matter of urgency," the statement said.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission said one of its helicopters was in the air during the 8:30 a.m. attack on Bentiu, the Unity state capital.