Ten people have been killed in an ambush of a convoy of south Sudanese civilians near the north-south border, a minister in the south has said.
Internal Affairs Minister Gier Chuang said 18 people were hurt in Monday’s attack in South Kordofan, north of the border, by Misseriya Arab tribesmen.
He said the civilians were returning home to vote in Southern Sudan’s ongoing independence referendum.
Some 30 people reportedly died earlier in the nearby disputed Abyei area.
Tuesday is the third day of the week-long referendum in Southern Sudan, with voters looking set to back independence.
The vote was part of a 2005 peace deal which ended decades of civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the south, where most people are Christian or follow traditional religions.