Tension raises between Sudan and South Sudan

[EMT]

An oil pipeline has been attacked, apparently by Sudanese fighter jets, in the latest outbreak of violence on the volatile border between Sudan and South Sudan. Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri witnessed Wednesday's air raids that took place near the town of Heglig, in a contested oil-rich area that saw heavy fighting during the Sudanese civil war.

"We were interviewing the South Sudanese minister of oil who is here assessing the situation and we actually came under attack by what looked like MiG's [fighters jets] belonging to the Khartoum government and also Antonov planes high above," she said. "We were forced to run into trenches." There were no reports of casualties or damage after the raids.

South Sudanese forces responded with anti-aircraft fire, prompting claims that one of the fighter jets had been shot down, Moshiri said. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, South Sudan's information minister, confirmed the air raids and said the fighter, including the pilot, was "burnt beyond recognition".

"Today at 3:00pm South Sudan local time, a MiG-29 fighter was on a bombing raid in the area. And the SPLA defence unit was able to shoot it down," Benjamin said. "So there is concrete evidence of what we have been saying: that we are under continuous attack from the Republic of Sudan, both by air as well as from the ground."

Colonel Khaled Saad Alsawarmi, a spokesman of the Sudanese army, denied Sudan's involvement in the attack. "Reports of the warplane shot down are a fabricated lie. No fighting took place today, and even when there were battles previously, the Sudanese army doesn't use planes, just artillery and that is after the South Sudanese army attacks first."

Aljazeera