Sudan 'not big enough' for both of us, Bashir tells JubaBy REEM ABBAS in Khartoum and Agencies | Tuesday, April 24  2012 at  15:14

President Omar al-Bashir has told bitter rival South Sudan that there was "no room" for both of them on Sudanese territory as hostilities between the former civil war foes continued to fester.

And South Sudan President Salva Kiir while on a visit to Beijing has said Khartoum "has declared war" on his country following reports of new Sudan bombings.

In a new warning to the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) following an earlier threat to overthrow the Juba government, President Bashir Monday warned against any further aggression on his country.

His deputy Ali Osman Mohamed Taha in an address to parliament upped the ante when he apparently gave a "shoot-to-kill" order to anyone proven to have supported South Sudan either morally of financially.

Flashpoint

President Bashir while addressing oil workers at the flashpoint oil-field of Heglig said that "one of us needs to go" in reference to the SPLM.

South Sudan withdrew from Heglig--which produces half of Sudan's oil--although Khartoum insisted that it had pushed southern soldiers out.

Mr Bashir claimed that SPLM officials did not care about their citizens and sent them to fight Sudan while they sent their families to stay and study abroad.

He ruled out talks with South Sudan saying the Juba administration only understood "the language of the gun".

There were reports that Sudan had continued dropping bombs on South Sudan territory in an action condemned by the UN and the international community.

Kenya President Mwai Kibaki in a state of the nation address said that the two countries "must not return to war".

Khartoum has turned up the rhetoric against the SPLM since clashes over Heglig begun in March.

South Sudan seized Heglig on April 10 after it accused Khartoum of using it as a launching pad for attacks against the oil-producing Unity State.

Arrests

The angst has translated into the arrests of individuals believed to be affiliated with the SPLM-North Sudan faction, a banned political party that sprung out of the SPLM and which is active in Sudan.

Khartoum has been on a crackdown on activists believed to be sympathetic to the SPLM-N since military confrontation with Sudan in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states last year.

Deterioration in relations between the two Sudans has seen the operation pick up.

Jalilia Khamis, a key SPLM-N member who hails from the Nuba Mountains was arrested in Khartoum in late March and remains in the custody of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).

Nightgown

Her family said that the NISS officers arrested her after midnight and she was taken in a nightgown and not even allowed to change.

Last weekend, Izdihar Joma, another female SPLM-member was detained by the NISS for a few hours.

"I'm under house arrest, the NISS officers turn back any visitors who try to come see me," Joma told the Africa Review in a phone interview.

Ms Joma was detained and targeted several times in the last year.

Another SPLM-N member, Alwia Kibeida was arrested on Sunday and is still in detention.

Kibeida served as an SPLM minister in Sudan's Sennar state a few years ago.