Sudan's army said Wednesday a rebel group which has refused to sign a key peace deal had shelled a town in the southern state of West Kordofan, wounding two officers.
The reported artillery strikes in Lagawa, some 580 kilometers (360 miles) southwest of the capital Khartoum, comes after ethnic clashes last week in a land dispute near the town left several people dead.
"Forces belonging to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) launched indiscriminate shellings", the armed forces said in a statement, AFP reported.
It said the attacks, which took place on Tuesday, smashed into a market and two neighborhoods in Lagawa and wounded two members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The army said rebel troops then launched an assault, but soldiers were able "to force them to withdraw".
The SPLM-N rebels in the area, a faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu based in the rugged Nuba Mountains, has not commented on the reports.
It follows clashes which erupted on Friday following a "dispute over land ownership" between rival ethnic Nuba and Arab Misseriya groups, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The UN said there were "reports of 12 people killed and 20 wounded" in the violence on Friday, but Sudan's armed forces said five had died. Rebels denied involvement in the fighting.
