Africa - Sudanese planes intensify bombings in southern Sudan

["Nadia & Giovanni" <nadia.joe@tiscalinet.it>]

News Article by AFP posted on November 27, 2000 at 10:45:17: EST (-5 GMT)

Sudanese planes intensify bombings in southern Sudan: NGO

NAIROBI, Nov 27 (AFP) - Sudanese government planes bombed Twic
County in southern Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal region over two days last
week, demolishing part of a missionary school, a local aid agency
said here Monday.

In statement sent to AFP, Sudan Production Aid (SUPRAID), a
member of the UN-led umbrella agency Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS),
said that a Sudanese military plane made three bombing passes over
Panlit village in Bahr el-Ghazal's Twic County at 11:00 am (0800
GMT) on Friday.

Fourteen bombs were dropped in all, one of which fell within
El-Obied diocese-sponsored and administered Panlit Missionary
School, demolishing two of its classrooms.

Another round hit a herd of grazing cattle, killing 73 cows
instantly, the statement said.

It said that although no human losses have been reported, most
of the 700 children at the school fled to the bush or their
villages. The school has yet to account for most of the missing
children.

The population has been scared away from Twic County's main
Turalei locality and closed down their shops on Sunday, as people

Shortly after noon on Saturday, anothing bomber hit the village
of Anyiel, two kilometres (one mile) east of Turalei.

Before dropping four bombs on the village, many Sudanese
military jet fighters flew for a long time over Western Upper Nile
region and over Aweng and Ajak Payam, east of Twic County,
apparently not to drop bombs, but to scare the local population,
before the bomber struck.

It was the first time in the 17-year war between the rebel Sudan
People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and successive regimes in Khartoum
that Twic County has been bombed for two days in a row, the locals
noted.