Jura - Tribesmen attacked a village in south Sudan on Sunday, overwhelming soldiers guarding the settlement and killing an unknown number, the army said.

More than 1,200 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in a wave of  ethnic clashes in the oil- producing region this year.

Many of the attacks are linked to long-running feuds over cattle rustling, exacerbated by a ready supply of guns and dissatisfaction over the slow rate of development in the region.

Ssouthern politicians have also accused their former civil war foes in north Sudan of arming rival tribes to spread instability before national elections scheduled for April 2010 and a  referendum on southern independence in 2011. Khartoum denies the accusation.

A large group of fighters from the Lou Nuer ethnic group attacked Duk Padiet village, inhabited by the Dinka Hol tribe, on Sunday morning, southern army spokesman Kuol Diem  Kuol said.

It was too early to give a death toll, he said.

Sudanese national security officers, who were visiting the village to gather information on recent clashes, were also overwhelmed in the attack.