Contact: Jeff Walton, Institute on Religion and Democracy, 202-682-4131, 202-413-5639 cell, jwalton@TheIRD.org

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- Armed forces of Sudan's Islamist regime have crossed international borders and dropped bombs on two states in the new nation of South Sudan for two consecutive days, including a camp of northern Sudanese refugees from the Nuba Mountains.

Today, Russian-built Sudanese Antonov bombers attacked South Sudan's Unity State's Yida refugee camp, run by the Christian aid organization Samaritan's Purse, reportedly killing 12 people and wounding 20. These refugees from the Nuba include both Muslims and Christians persecuted by Sudan's Arabist regime. The day before, the Sudanese bombed Upper Nile State, also in South Sudan, killing 7 people. At least 15,000 people had sought refuge at Yida, just over the border from Sudan.

Attacks by the Islamist regime began in June on the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan and on Blue Nile State in September. South Sudan President Salva Kiir warns that Sudan may be preparing to invade South Sudan soon. John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, said the regime in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, is attempting to provoke South Sudan into restarting a war.

McDonnell announced that IRD's Church Alliance for a New Sudan was now working with dozens of other advocates to strengthen U.S. policy to stop Khartoum's genocidal war in a new alliance, "Act for Sudan."

IRD Director of the Church Alliance for a New Sudan Faith J.H. McDonnell commented:

"Khartoum is engaged in a war of extermination in both of these regions. The racist regime has sent militias door to door with instructions to 'cleanse the area,' and 'sweep out the trash,' meaning to kill the black, African Nuba people.

"This is the same pattern of human rights atrocities and genocidal warfare we see in Darfur and, of course, saw in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, and South Sudan during the decades of war.

"For Nuba Mountain and Blue Nile refugees, this is the return of a horrific nightmare from which they thought they had awakened. How can we who have said, 'never again,' now have to say 'never again,' again?

"Mass graves exist. Aerial bombardment continues. The threats of this ICC-indicted criminal, terrorist regime to neighboring South Sudan's security, as well as to that of the region and the global community are blatant. Sudan's marginalized people want freedom, peace, and true secular democracy."