WARNING: The video above contains images of a disturbing nature.

George Clooney has appeared in a YouTube video making an illegal and dangerous trip to the southern reaches of Sudan.

The actor is shown witnessing what an American activist said was likely to be a Chinese-made missile sail overhead.

Clooney's four-minute video highlights attacks on civilians in Sudan's Nuba Mountains, a region that US officials say could soon suffer a severe hunger crisis.

In the video, which Clooney wrote and directed, a man from the Nuba tribe is seen pushing the Hollywood actor to take cover after a rocket sails overhead. Mothers carrying children and young children lugging water jugs can be seen moving towards caves to take shelter.

Ryan Boyette, an American who lives in the Nuba Mountains, said Sudan's military has been launching large, Chinese-made rockets against civilians - not military forces with the rebel group known as the SPLM-N. Boyette said most of the rocket victims are caught off guard because they don't know the rocket is approaching.

The Clooney video, produced with the advocacy group Enough Project, shows graphic footage of a boy who lost both hands in an attack. It also shows Clooney speaking to a child who recently had a bullet removed from his body.

Clooney asks one man during a conversation: "This is simply trying to clear people out ethnically because of the color of their skin?" The Nuba man responds that Sudan wants to move black Nubans out and put Arabs in.

Jonathan Hutson, a spokesman for the Enough Project, said: "The purpose of the four-minute video is for Clooney to give a megaphone for the Nuba people on the ground and to raise awareness.

"He wanted to make sure that the Nubans in the video were not portrayed as victims. He wanted to put the spotlight on the voices of civilians on the ground."

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