A Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) rebel leader was killed when his group attacked the site of a non-governmental organization in south Sudan, a senior government official said Monday.
Humanitarian Aid Commissioner (HAC) Sulaf Eddin Mohamed Salih told AFP that the armed group, composed of separatist SPLA rebels, assaulted a compound of the International Organization for Development of Southern Sahara (IODSS) last Friday in the Nagdiar area, about 28 km (17 miles) east of the capital of the Upper Nile State, Malakal.
Government troops immediately intervened, and exchanged fire with the rebels, killed their leader and drove them out of the area, Salih said.
IODSS is a Sudanese NGO which runs educational, health and social welfare programs on the Sobat River in south Sudan's Upper Nile.
On Sunday, government troops inflicted heavy losses in lives and equipment on the rebels in central Sudan's Nuba Mountains, seizing mortars and machine-guns, and freed large numbers of civilians who were in captivity with the rebel movement.
The largest country in Africa has been wracked for 17 years by a civil war pitting the northern Muslim Arab government against the non-Muslim black south -- KHARTOUM (AFP)
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