Two injured in government bombing

Government warplanes dropped 12 bombs on the town of Ikotos, Eastern Equatoria, on Friday, seriously wounding two people, according to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Torit.

"Our place has been targeted on three consecutive bombings and we don't understand why," Jervasio Okot, of the Nairobi Social Communications Office of the Diocese of Torit, south Sudan, told IRIN on Tuesday. "These are social places, they are out of the military area."

The bombers had also attacked Ikotos on 26 June, demolishing the house of a local priest, and again on 29 June, when another building in the church premises was destroyed, the Nairobi office of the Torit Diocese stated on 12 July.

"Consequently, the civil population in Ikotos is in a constant state of fear", it said.

The Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi had no immediate comment.

Okot said the Antonov bombers were also seen over the area on five occasions on Monday, but did not drop any bombs. "The people had to go into hiding and could not even prepare food during the day," he said.

The government could, he said, be targeting Ikotos and the surrounding area as a result of the capture by the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in June of the garrison town of Kapoeta, some 120 km east of the town of Torit. Government aircraft could be hoping to target rebels in the villages around Kapoeta, he added. The Sudanese army denied, last week, bombing civilians in Kapoeta after losing control of the town.

"According to information obtained by the armed forces, there are no civilians inside Kapoeta top be a target for bombing," AFP quoted military spokesman Gen Muhammad Bashir Sulayman as saying on 6 July.

Southern Sudanese Catholic church officials claimed that government aircraft had bombed Kapoeta on 1 July, killing five people and injuring seven, AFP said. The attacks come at a time when preparations are being made for the creation of a US-led international team to monitor attacks on civilian targets.

The head of the monitoring mission, a former US army general, Herbert Lloyd, visited Khartoum last week to begin setting up his office, news agencies reported. The team would comprise 23 to 25 people, and would be based in Khartoum and the southern town of Rumbek, diplomatic sources told IRIN on Monday. "But as of now we don't know who the members of that international coalition will be," sources said.

Okot called on the international community to provide protection for the people of south Sudanese people against further attacks.

"The bishops, the clergy, and the laity strongly appeal the IGAD [Inter-Governmental Authority on Development], and the International Community for intervention, and to declare a no fly zone for the protection of the downtrodden Sudanese", he said.