Fighting spreads across Sudan's border with South Sudan

Sudan's parliament in session in Khartoum Sudan's parliament voted unanimously on Monday to brand the government of South Sudan an enemy, after southern troops invaded the north's main oilfield. The vote came as South Sudan accused Khartoum of fresh airstrikes that killed 10 civilians and also hit a United Nations peacekeeping camp, on the seventh day of the most severe border fighting since South Sudan separated last July with hope for a peaceful future.
"The government of South Sudan is an enemy and all Sudanese state agencies have to treat her accordingly," the parliament's resolution said.
After the vote, parliamentary speaker Ahmed Ibrahim El-Tahir called in the legislature for the overthrow of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) which rules the South.
"We announce that we will clash with SPLM until we end her government of South Sudan. We collect all our resources to reach this goal," he said.
Clashes have reportedly spread along the border of Sudan and South Sudan, officials said Monday, with Sudanese officials claiming to have seized an area sympathetic to South Sudan. ?Fighting along the north-south border has been near constant over the past two weeks.Southern army spokesman Col Philip Aguer said Monday that Sudan's air force killed five civilians in aerial attacks over the disputed town of Heglig.The Sudan Media Center also reported Monday that Sudan's army took control of Mugum, a stronghold of the southern army in Blue Nile state, which is near South Sudan's border.

The government news service quoted an "informed" source of the command of the 4th Division as saying the division raided Mugum on Sunday, killed 25 rebels and seized a large quantity of weapons and equipment.
Sudanese warplanes allegedly bombed a UN peacekeepers' base, damaging it but causing no casualties, officials said Monday. Bombing raids on Sunday also killed nine civilians elsewhere in South Sudan's Unity border state, said the area's information minister, Gideon Gatpan.
"They launched another bombardment here yesterday," Gatpan said, adding that bombs were dropped near the oil-producing state's capital Bentiu, as well as in the village of Mayom, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) to the west.
"In Mayom... it killed seven civilians and wounded 14, two bombs fell inside the UN camp in Mayom and destroyed a generator and a radio," Gatpan said.
"Two fighter jets released eight bombs east of Bentiu," he added. "Others fell in villages around Bentiu, where two people were killed, including a pregnant woman, and eight people were wounded."
UN peacekeeping mission spokesman Kouider Zerrouk confirmed the attack on the small base, but said "there were no casualties, no one was wounded".South Sudan’s army has accused Khartoum of trying to open a second front in the northeast of its territory, an area which has so far been spared from violent clashes between the two countries.South Sudan’s SPLA army repulsed fresh attacks launched by Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) troops Sunday near the village of Kuek, a widening of the fighting outside the contested Heglig oil field, the SPLA’s spokesman said.
“SAF is trying to open another front in Upper Nile state,” Aguer told reporters.
“Today at 6am local time (3am GMT) they attacked a place call Kuek,” on the border with Sudan’s White Nile state,” he said. “SPLA had to counter-attack and repulsed them.”
The Sudanese army's spokesperson, Colonel al-Sawarmi Khlaled Saad, claimed on Saturday that Sudanese forces had entered the oil-rich Heglig region seized earlier by South Sudan's army. However a high-profile military source in theSouthern army told Arabstoday that the claims were false and that his forces had captured 14 Sudanese soldiers during military clashes, including an officer ranked as lieutenant.
Aguer said South Sudanese troops had not crossed the border, and that they continued to control Heglig.
He told Arabstoday: "Since Friday night, the Sudanese army has claimed to be close to Heglig. The South Sudanese army is in full control of the Heglig along with its neighbouring regions, as we have troops located 70km to the north of Heglig, so if the Sudanese troops are that close, clashes should have taken place."
Rabie Abdelaty, a spokesman for the Khartoum government, ruled out peace talks with the south, saying it would hurt national pride if Sudan didn't take back Heglig by force. Sudan earlier this month pulled out of scheduled talks.
"Our people are angry," he said Monday. "This is not a time for diplomacy. This is a time for pushing them and letting them know that they are irresponsible."
He added: "This is war. Our forces want to teach them a lesson."
Meanwhile, the UN Scretary General Ban Ki-Moon, has increased calls for South Sudan to withdraw from Heglig, while the South Sudanese Information Minister, Barnaba Benjamin told Arabstoday that South Sudanese president Salva Kiir was ready to meet with Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir at any venue, saying a meeting "was the only way to avoid war between the two countries".
Benjamin however insisted his country would not withdraw from Heglig unless the UN deployed forces to monitor the border between the two countries.
The South Sudanese army said 19 of its soldiers had been killed in the clashes since last Tuesday. It said 240 soldiers from the Sudanase army had died.
There was no way of verifying the figures, the first toll issued in relation to the latest border violence.
Later Sunday Sudan warned South Sudan against damaging oil facilities in Heglig, after the South accused Khartoum’s air force of bombing the area.
“If the South Sudanese army affects the oil infrastructure it means it is keen on taking the conflict to a new level,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Al-Obeid Meruh said in a statement.
Aguer told reporters earlier that Sudanese planes were bombing the Heglig area “indiscriminately” but had not managed to oust his country’s forces.
Col Aguer said the aerial attack over Heglig seriously wounded nine people and hit oil wells.
"There has been continued bombardment by Sudan Armed Forces," Aguer said. "Our forces are now on maximum alert."
Sudanese information minister Abdullah Ali Massar denied the claim.
The latest hostilities are the worst since South Sudan’s independence from Sudan last July under a 2005 peace accord, and have raised fears of a return to outright war.
The most intense fighting has centred on Heglig, a small town initially controlled by the Sudanese army that contributed about half of Sudan’s total oil production.
South Sudan, which also claims Heglig, seized the town Tuesday.
Some two million people died in Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war, one of Africa’s longest, before the peace deal that opened the way to South Sudan’s independence.
When the South separated, Khartoum lost about 75 percent of its oil production and billions of dollars in revenue, leaving the Heglig area as its main oil centre.