Militiamen have killed at least 76 people in an attack in southern Sudan in the latest in a series of ethnic clashes, the military says, BBC reported.
UN sources said thousands of armed men from the Lou Nuer ethnic group attacked civilians and security forces in the village of Duk Padiet in Jonglei state.
Last month about 185 Lou Nuers were killed by ethnic Murle fighters in an attack in the same state.
Some 2,000 people have died in similar clashes across the south this year.
Initial reports of Sunday's attack on the village had a much lower death toll, but southern army spokesman Kuol Diem Kuol confirmed on Monday that 76 people had died.
He said the attackers had targeted the military and that 22 of the dead were soldiers.
"This is not a raid for cattle but a militia attack against security forces," he said.
Under a 2005 peace deal ending a two-decade war between north and south, former southern rebels formed a power-sharing government with President Omar al-Bashir's party in Khartoum.
A national election is due next year and southern Sudanese are meant to vote in a referendum to decide whether to secede from the north in 2011.
The BBC's Peter Martell, in the southern Sudanese capital Juba, says many people fear Khartoum is orchestrating the violence.
Some southern politicians believe Khartoum is arming militias from both sides in a bid to destabilise the region and delay the votes indefinitely.
But the south is made up of a patchwork of rival ethnic groups who have long fought over grazing land, cattle and other resources.
And Khartoum vehemently denies playing any part in the violence in the south.