Khartoum-backed militia kill 17 civilians, rebels say

Khartoum, Feb 9 (AFP) Khartoum-backed militia in Sudan's South Kordofan state have killed 17 civilians, rebels said today. They accused the group of ethnic South Sudanese of ambushing a civilian lorry yesterday at Abu Nuwara, about 80 kilometres from the border with South Sudan's Upper Nile state. "They clashed with the civilians there and there's a lot of casualties," said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) which has been fighting government forces in South Kordofan since June 2011. He said the incident occurred in a government-controlled area and blamed a militia linked to Lam Akol's Sudan People's Liberation Movement-Democratic Change (SPLM-DC). "This is ridiculous," Akol told AFP from Khartoum. "We don't have a militia." SPLM-DC is South Sudan's main opposition party, a breakaway group from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement which has ruled the South since independence in 2011 after a 22-year civil war. He said the rebels in South Kordofan are "just parroting what their masters in Juba are saying." Khartoum accuses South Sudan of supporting the SPLM-North, and this has been a major obstacle for the failure of Sudan and South Sudan to implement key security and economic agreements signed in September. (AFP) ASY 02091759 NNNN