Regimet i Khartoum akter ikke å la Sør-Sudan bli uavhengig 7. juli, ser det ut til, og har sendt hær og milits inn i den sørlige Kordofan-provinsen, hvor den herjer og sprer død og gru.

FN-ansatte forteller om grufulle overgrep og massegraver. Det snakkes om et nytt Darfur.

Kordofan ligger innen Sudans grenser, men hvis området destabiliseres vil det ha store konsekvenser for Sør-Sudan.

President Obama advarte igår Khartoum mot et nytt eventyr i sør.

According to United Nations officials and aid workers, the northern Sudanese Army has embarked on an aggressive campaign against Kordofan’s Nuban people, many of whom aligned with the southern Sudanese during Sudan’s last civil war.

“They are killing the black people,” said a Sudanese aid worker who just escaped from a bombed village on Wednesday and asked not to be identified for safety reasons. “The northern army is slaughtering people who supported the S.P.L.M.,” the southern-led political party that is active in several parts of northern Sudan.

It was difficult to get a clear picture of what exactly was happening because northern Sudanese soldiers were not allowing United Nations monitors to travel freely in the area and have severed access to many villages, some of them heavily bombed. Anglican Church officials said that the violence was intensifying and that Kordofan could become “another Darfur.”

On Wednesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report, “There is a growing sense of panic among some of the displaced populations who find themselves trapped by the ongoing violence and the ethnic fault lines.”

The report also spoke of “sectarian violence against civilians” and “widespread looting” and said that local sources had indicated that dozens had been killed in bombing runs by northern Sudanese aircraft.

An internal United Nations report provided to The New York Times said that the northern army was planting mines — which have already killed at least one person — in towns and that there had been allegations of mass graves.

Sudan Democracy First Group, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said at least 28 people had been killed in extrajudicial executions, and it provided the names of the people it said had been killed.

“Ethnic cleansing once again,” the group said this week.

Den sudanesiske hæren har omringet en stor FN-base og sulter ut de ansatte. En katedral er brent. Volden retter seg mot Nuba-folket, som er kristne og tok Sør-Sudans parti i borgerkrigen. Nå er hevnens time kommet, og den har det rasistiske preget som også utspilte seg i Darfur.

The officials said that the northern army was essentially encircling a large peacekeeping base and that employees inside were down to their last rations and water. Sudanese aid workers said that several people had been killed by northern soldiers in front of the United Nations base, an allegation that some United Nations officials did not deny.

Church leaders in Kordofan have sent e-mails in which they said northern troops and allied militia members ransacked church offices. A new cathedral has been burned down, according to the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury.

Kordofan lies within the boundaries of Arab-dominated northern Sudan but is home to the Nuba Mountains and the Nuba people, many of whom are Christian and fought alongside the southern rebels during the long north-south civil war. On July 9, southern Sudan is to formally declare its independence from northern Sudan, which many analysts say will leave the southern-allied militias in the north in a precarious position.

U.N. Officials Warn of a Growing ‘Panic’ in Central Sudan as Violence Spreads