WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Washington said it was "deeply disturbed" by reports from the United Nations of mass atrocities in Sudan's state of South Kordofan.
A 12-page report from the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded there were violations of international law in South Kordofan state. The report accuses the armed force of both Sudan and South Sudan of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and other atrocities.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said such "flagrant and repeated violations" were a "serious matter" that can't go unpunished.
Washington helped broker a 2005 comprehensive peace agreement that ended Sudan's civil war, one of the bloodiest in world history.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, in a statement, said the situation in South Kordofan had grown increasingly dire.
"We are deeply disturbed by the reports of extrajudicial killings, attacks on civilians, mass graves, arbitrary detentions, abductions, house to house searches, forced displacements and other clear violations of humanitarian law," she said.
Sudan's state-run Sudan News Agency said Khartoum sent a delegation to South Kordofan to relay "a message of peace and social cohesion to the parties to the dispute in the state."
