Sudan market bombing a "declaration of war" - South

The burnt body of a boy killed during an air strike by the Sudanese air force is covered with sheets in a market in Rubkona near Bentiu April 23, 2012. Sudanese warplanes carried out air strikes on South Sudan on Monday, killing three people near the southern oil town of Bentiu, residents and military officials said, three days after South Sudan pulled out of a disputed oil field. (Reuters Pictures)

OUTSIDE BENTIU, South Sudan (Reuters) - Sudanese war planes bombed a market in the capital of South Sudan's oil-producing Unity State on Monday, residents and officials said, in an attack the southern army called a declaration of war.

Sudan denied carrying out any air raids but its President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ramped up the political tension by ruling out a return to negotiations with the South, saying its government only understood "the language of the gun".

A Reuters journalist saw aircraft dropping two bombs near a bridge linking two areas of Unity's capital Bentiu, although it was not possible to verify the planes' affiliation. He saw market stalls ablaze and the body of one child.

Weeks of border fighting have brought the neighbors closer to a full-blown war than at any time since South Sudan split away from Sudan as an independent country in July.

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