LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Khartoum has continued to battle a branch of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in some of Sudan's southern provinces since the two countries seceded.

Khartoum's ambassador to Kenya has told journalists that the hut burning it is part of an SPLM-N propaganda campaign to smear Sudan's government. If the video is genuine, it constitutes a crime against humanity.

A rare video shot by a soldier in a unit nicknamed the "match battalion" shows Sudanese troops burning a village in southern Sudan last year.

The five minute video depicts flames burning through a stick-hut village. One soldier carries a flaming torch as the sound of gunfire cracks in the background.

The apparent owner of the cell phone poses in front of the camera multiple times and the commander of the troops gives orders in Sudanese Arabic.

"Matches, where are the matches? Burn this house," the commander says.

The video was found on the body of a dead Sudanese soldier, Ryan Boyette, an American who lives in Southern Kordofan says. He estimates that the burning of the village, which he says is Umbartumbo, in Southern Kordofan took place last August, and is the first time images of Sudanese troops burning villages have surfaced during the one-year conflict. The Associated Press could not verify the date or location of the video.

Boyette says that SAF forces usually burn villages that it occupies in areas controlled by rebel fighters known by the initials SPLA-N, or Sudan People's Liberation Army-North. The SPLA - without the "N'' for North - is a former rebel movement that is now the legitimate army of the separate nation of South Sudan.

Fighting between Sudanese and SPLA-N forces began last year, which has sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing for safety. Aid groups have pleaded with Sudan to allow them to operate in Southern Kordofan to help those in need but Sudan continues to ban them from operating.

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