SUDAN - July 29 - SPLA Attacks Unicef Member.

'SUNA' reports 1 person was injured in an attack on by the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on a UN Children's Fund boat in southern Sudan. 'SUNA' quotes the official Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) as saying: "A group of infiltrating rebel elements attacked a boat belonging to UNICEF at Nagotar on the Sobar River, some 40 km south-east of Malakal, on July 27". (Malakal is around 675 km south of Khartoum.) Samson Kwaje, an SPLA spokesman, denies the SPLA had been involved in the attack. He says: "We don't have forces in that area. We are not near the Sobar river", adding: "That area has for a long time been controlled by different militia controlled by the government". (Attacks have been carried out on river barges chartered by UN agencies in recent years.) HAC says: "We consider this incident as a continuation of the rebel provocation against humanitarian aid programmes and we demand that the international organisations condemn it". (In May 1999, 1 crew member and 2 World Food Programme (WFP) staff members were injured in an attack on a barge hired by the WFP to deliver relief aid to southern Sudan. The government blamed the attack on the SPLA.)