27 June 2011
KHARTOUM/PARIANG, Sudan: Civilians were among the victims of ongoing airstrikes in Sudan’s border state of South Kordofan, where the army is battling militia aligned to the soon to be independent South, the U.N. reported Sunday.
Sporadic airstrikes and shelling have been taking place since Wednesday in the eastern and southern parts of South Kordofan’s Nuba Mountains, home to Sudan’s indigenous non-Arab Nuba, the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA) said in its latest report.
“According to partners on the ground, one woman was killed and four others, including two children, were wounded in an aerial attack on Kauda on June 22,” OCHA said.
It added that several rockets landed near the U.N. peacekeeping mission (UNMIS) team site Friday.
Heavy fighting in North Sudan’s ethnically divided border state, which first erupted three weeks ago, has threatened to torpedo a 2005 peace deal that is set to deliver independence for the South on July 9.
The United States and the United Nations have repeatedly called for a cease-fire in the troubled border region and the safe passage of humanitarian assistance for the more than 70,000 people displaced by the conflict.
The security situation in South Kordofan state capital Kadugli, which saw some of the heaviest fighting when the conflict broke out, has significantly improved, according to various sources, with the town’s population returning slowly.
Last week, the authorities ordered the thousands of people who had sought shelter around the UNMIS compound outside Kadugli to return to the town.
But OCHA said Sunday that the overall humanitarian picture remained far from clear.
“Due to the ongoing restrictions on movements of humanitarian staff, it is difficult to verify reports or properly assess the overall impact of the ongoing military operations on civilians,” OCHA said.
Church leaders and activists say the army’s campaign forms part of a government policy of ethnic cleansing, targeting the Nuba peoples who fought with former Southern rebels the SPLA in the 1983-2005 war with Khartoum.
The government strongly denies the claims, saying it is protecting the civilian population.
OCHA said the authorities were still holding four of the six local U.N. staff of Southern origin detained by the army Wednesday as they were being relocated to the South.
Families from the remote town of Jau on the border of North and South Sudan recalled fleeing for their lives when the town was targeted by army bombings that destroyed the market and scattered the terrified population.
The combings started just days after heavy fighting erupted across the border in South Kordofan, on June 5, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (Northern army) and militia aligned to the soon-to-be-independent South.
“Antonovs bombed the area and killed my son” says Thrab Deng Nading, a woman from Jau. So she hurriedly left on foot with her remaining four children and came to Pariang, the county capital, a day’s walk across the vast plain.
The International Organization for Migration says that 3,700 people have fled Jau since the attacks, with many ending up in Pariang and the nearby towns of Faring and Aliab.
Many Southern-aligned fighters from South Kordofan had regrouped at the lakeside town, on the south side of the border in Unity state, which has now become a possible new front line between the South’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the SAF, its former civil war enemy.
“We can sometimes hear the sound of the bombing,” says John Miakol, the Pariang secretary for the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, a government organization charged with helping the displaced.
Army planes have also been seen flying over Panyang, 15 kilometers north of Pariang.
“I am worried that Antonovs will follow us here and bomb Pariang town,” says Ayak, another woman who fled Jau 10 days ago.
The supply disruptions and influx of people have come in the middle of the so-called “hunger period,” when families cut back on household consumption because last year’s produce has been depleted and this year’s first crop has yet to be harvested.
In a lone building on the outskirts of town, around 40 families have taken refuge from the torrential rains that often render many of the roads to Pariang impassable.
“The IDPs [internally displaced persons] are in urgent need of assistance,” said Mabek Lang Mading, the county commissioner.
Compounding their woes, there appears to be no resolution to the conflict across the border, which has already forced more than 70,000 people to flee, according to U.N. estimates.
“I don’t see any progress by the warring sides in South Kordofan,” Mading added.
“If they are still bombing Jau after July 9, then we will definitely respond,” Mading warned.
Copyright The Daily Star 2011.
