Sudan denies two killed in South Kordofan bombing

Two women have been killed by Sudanese aerial bombing in South Kordofan, rebels said on Monday after Hollywood star George Clooney accused the Khartoum regime of war crimes.

Sudan's armed forces denied the latest allegations by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).

"We didn't bomb any place," said the army spokesman, Sawarmi Khaled Saad.

One woman was killed in Kalkadda, near Kauda, while another died farther south when Antonov planes dropped their bombs, the rebels alleged.

Several cattle were also killed, they said.

The bombing occurred even though there has been no combat between government and rebel forces in those areas of South Kordofan for three or four days, SPLM-N spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi told AFP.

Clooney, who recently made a clandestine trip to the oil-rich area bordering newly independent South Sudan, told a United States Senate hearing last week he saw hundreds of people running to the hills or hiding in caves because of the omnipresent drone of Antonovs which have left them living in fear.

The mountainous zone was on track for "a major humanitarian crisis" because of persistent bombings by government forces that have impeded agriculture, Princeton Lyman, the US special envoy on Sudan, told the same Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

US officials warned that about 250,000 people could soon go hungry in the South Kordofan region, where the Sudanese government has cited security concerns in severely controlling access for foreign aid agencies.

Journalists also face restrictions, and on Monday authorities rejected AFP's request to report on humanitarian assistance operations in South Kordofan's state capital of Kadugli. They gave no reason for the refusal.

Khartoum says it is providing food and other help for the needy. But most of that aid has gone to government-held zones, according to the United Nations which seeks access throughout the conflict area in order to fully assess what is needed.

More than 360,000 people have been internally displaced or severely affected by the fighting that began last June in South Kordofan and later in nearby Blue Nile, the UN says.

Neither the UN nor the Red Cross can say how many non-combatants may have died.

The SPLM-N insurgents fought alongside the former rebels now ruling South Sudan, which became independent last July following an overwhelming vote after Africa's longest war.

Khartoum says South Sudan continues to support the SPLM-N, a charge rejected by Juba.

Clooney said President Omar al-Bashir and his aides are "proving themselves to be the greatest war criminals of this century by far."