Sudanese government forces have burnt down 14 villages in the Nuba mountain region destroying 5,000 homes, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) claimed yesterday.
In a statement the SPLA spokesman Mr Yasser Arman said that Khartoum had resorted to a "burnt-land policy" after failing to rout rebels from fortified positions in the mountainous region.
The Sudanese army claimed on Saturday that it had retaken nine localities from the SPLA in the Nuba Moutains after inflicting heavy casualties.
The SPLA also said its forces had also wiped out a government army unit in the Blue Nile region in eastern Sudan during a day-long battle last Friday.
The SPLA, Sudan's main rebel group, meanwhile announced that it had reunited with an important militia leader to strengthen its hand in an 18year-old revolt against the government in Khartoum. The SPLA signed a declaration of unity with Riek Machar's Sudan People's Defence Forces (SPDF) in Kenya, effectively pairing the leaders of the two largest southern tribes, the Dinka and the Nuer.
The SPDF split from the mainstream SPLA in 1991, and fighting between the two factions led to widespread killings inside southern Sudan.
In Khartoum yesterday a Sudanese Islamist opposition group accused the government of beating and shooting dead one of its members in front of his family. The Popular National Congress (PNC) and the Cairo-based Sudan Human Rights Organisation (SHRO) said security forces had deliberately killed 34-yearold Ali al-Bashir on Thursday.