18 July 2011

KAUDA, Sudan: High up in Sudan’s Nuba mountains, hundreds of men train to join fighters aligned to the ex-rebel army of the South, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

The Sudanese government has vowed to crush the first “rebellion” within its redrawn borders, in South Kordofan, as the government in Khartoum seeks to assert its authority over the truncated country, following the secession of the South.

Despite the army’s relentless bombing campaign over the past six weeks, the insurgency shows no sign of weakening, with the SPLA claiming to control much of the ethnically divided state.

Some are young, but many are older, like Abdullah, a middle-aged travel agent from Kadugli who volunteered after fleeing the heavy fighting in the state capital last month, along with 10 friends, four of whom were killed along the way.

“I lost so many in Kadugli. First, one of us was gunned down by a Dushka [anti-aircraft machine gun]. Then, when we were carrying him, two more were killed by an aerial bomb. Another was killed on the way here,” he says.

Numerous local sources have confirmed that the airstrikes on Kurchi destroyed the market and killed at least 16 civilians, including eight women and children.

Another 32 people were hospitalized.

War is not new to the Nuba mountains, the heartland of South Kordofan’s indigenous Nuba peoples, and the latest fighting seems to have strikingly familiar causes.

Many Nuba joined the Sudan People’s Liberation Army’s decades-long conflict with Khartoum in the early 1990s, when the new government of President Omar al-Bashir attempted to “Arabize” the region and impose Shariah, or Islamic law.

Under a towering tree, 73-year-old Brigadier Saed, the South Kordofan SPLA’s third in command, a seasoned fighter who has spent decades battling government forces, leads the new recruits in a chant.

Saed says he is happy about the independence of the South, but like many Nuba, he still believes in the late SPLA leader John Garang’s vision of a new, federal, democratic and united Sudan.

“I want freedom for the mountains and to help all marginalized people in Sudan, from Darfur to Blue Nile. They will join us. Already the SPLA in the Blue Nile has taken to the bush. They will fight too. We are ready to go to Khartoum to finish this,” he says.

His words echo a warning by Malik Agar, the governor of Blue Nile state, which also has a large number of SPLA supporters, that there was a “very high” chance of the war spreading to his state if the South Kordofan conflict drags on. That now looks more than likely.

The army’s attempt to eliminate the SPLA within its new borders has certainly taken its toll on the civilian population – more than 73,000 people have fled their homes since the fighting erupted, according to U.N. estimates.

An internal U.N. report seen by AFP said the army’s systematic attacks on Nuba civilians in South Kordofan, strongly denied by the government, could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But two weeks spent behind SPLA lines revealed a confident and well-armed force, further evidence that Khartoum has seriously underestimated the fighting capacity of the Nuba, who say they now control more than five counties in the state.

“This is our land. They attack us and withdraw. Bashir planned to disarm us, but we are now disarming him, like in Al-Hamra,” says Mubarak Abdelrahman Ahmad, a young SPLA officer.

Al-Hamra, a government garrison town, 20 kilometers southeast of Kadugli, was fought over repeatedly before the SPLA finally managed to rout the Sudanese army on July 1, and seize 43 vehicles and weapons.

In the only hospital still functioning in the Nuba mountains, more than 200 SPLA fighters have their wounds treated by an American doctor and two nurses who refused to leave.

In one room, a nurse cleans the half blown-off face of a boy injured in a bomb attack. In another, a 12-year-old girl is being treated for tetanus after her arm was cut off by shrapnel.

Tom Catena, the U.S. doctor, says he is shocked by what he has seen.

Outside, the buzz of an Antonov bomber silences the sound of playing children, who scramble up through the rocks and into the caves, where they peer out into the cloudy sky in anticipation of the next airstrike.

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.