Sudan's military has bombed a village in an oil-rich southern region, southern officials say, as tensions increase ahead of the south's independence next month. Three people were killed in the raid on Unity State, the south's military spokesman said. More than 100,000 people have fled recent fighting on the northern side of the border, the UN says. Sudan's north-south conflict left some 1.5 million dead over two decades. The war ended with a 2005 peace deal, under which the south held a referendum in January on whether to secede. Some 99% of voters opted for independence from the north - and President Omar al-Bashir had said he would accept the verdict of the south, where most of Sudan's oil fields lie. But last month, his forces seized the disputed town of Abyei and there have also been recent clashes in South Kordofan state, which is in the north but includes many pro-south communities. South Sudan's military spokesman Philip Aguer told the AFP news agency that the bombing of Unity State was a move to seize the region's oil fields. The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest. Source: BBC