The Sudanese army said on Tuesday that 50 rebels and four soldiers were killed during a rebel attack in South Kordofan State on border with neighboring South Sudan.

"In a desperate attempt to prove its presence on the ground, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) waged a reckless attack on South Kordofan's villages of Pellnja and Alatamor on Tuesday," army spokesman al-Sawarmi Khaled Saad said in a statement.

"The armed forces repelled the attackers, killing about 50 of them and seized a large number of equipment, machinery and vehicles," Saad added.

The spokesman said that four army soldiers were killed and several others injured in the attack.

Since 2011, the SPLM-N has waged an active insurgency against the Sudanese government in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.

Outlawed by Khartoum, the movement consists mainly of fighters who sided with the south during Sudan's decades-long civil war. That conflict ended with a 2005 peace treaty that paved the way for South Sudan's secession from Sudan six years later.

In recent weeks, the SPLM-N has engaged in Ethiopia-hosted peace talks with the Sudanese government, which have yet to yield any tangible results.

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