Iranian munitions used to kill Sudanese civilians, refugees say
South Kordofanese exiles tell of an ethnic cleansing all but hidden from public vie
L
ONDON
— Were it not for the televised arrest of American actor George Clooney
outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, DC, last Friday, it is
doubtful whether anyone in the West would have heard about the plight of
Sudan’s Nuba mountain inhabitants.
It is part of what Ashraf Gango, 32, a doctor
from the town of Al-Dilling in South Kordofan, calls “Sudan fatigue
syndrome.” The world is tired of hearing about the wartorn country; its
violence seems endemic to Africa
.
Violence erupted in the Sudanese states of
South Kordofan and Blue Nile last June, shortly before South Sudan
declared its independence from the north in July 2011. The Sudanese army
began indiscriminately bombing the two states from land and air,
burning villages, and killing and raping civilians, copying patterns of
attack used in Darfur, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have
reported.
At first, the army focused on members of the
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), an anti-government group that
demands the Arab-oriented government in Khartoum stop discriminatory
policies against ethnic African states in the south of Sudan. Now the
military forces of President Omar Bashir, wanted by the International
Criminal Court for war crimes against Darfur, are indiscriminately
targeting civilians, says Yasir Hamouda, a member of SPLM, who fled
South Kordofan in January.
SPLM is now the ruling party
of independent South Sudan, which broke off from the north on July 9.
The inhabitants of South Kordofan and Blue Nile are ethnic Africans from
the Nuba tribes, mostly adherents of Christianity and animist
religions. Following the secession of South Sudan, members of SPLM’s
armed wing, SPLA-North, held on to their weapons, claiming that local
elections were rigged in order for the central government to maintain
its grasp over the region.
Hamouda claims that the government’s war
against South Kordofan and Blue Nile is punitive, a hostile message
toward a population that supported the secession of South Sudan last
year. He insists that Bashir is perpetrating ethnic cleansing, not a
religious war, since the previous victims of Khartoum — the inhabitants
of Darfur — are predominantly Muslim.
Last July, the Satellite Sentinal Project at
Harvard University reported that it identified eight mass graves outside
Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan. Satellite images detected a
cluster of white plastic body bags near two new graves; and the images
were corroborated by eyewitness accounts. The local Red Cross and Red
Crescent have also reported collecting dead bodies in Kadugli and
requesting additional body bags and tarps for the task.
Photos emerging from southern Sudan reveal
munitions with Persian inscriptions on them. An Iranian-made drone was
shot down by rebel forces on March 14, according to opposition sources.
“The Sudanese government is literally getting
away with murder, and trying to keep the outside world from finding
out,” Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response
Adviser, said last August. “The international community… must stop
looking the other way and act to address the situation.”
Each of the Sudanese expats living in London
has his own horror story. Dr. Sallam Tutu, a human rights activist with
the Nuba Mountain Solidarity Abroad group, says his family home in
Kadugli was plundered and razed by government forces. His 70-year-old
mother fled to the nearby mountains where she hid for three months,
before escaping north, to the capital.
Ashraf Gango’s colleague at the hospital in
Kadugli was dragged out of his ward and shot dead last June for
belonging to the SPLA. Gango, who has been away from Sudan since 2007,
says he jumps every time the phone rings from Sudan.
“I am very saddened by what is happening. I have seen some brutal pictures from my region,” he says.
The men harshly criticize the role of the
United Nations in their region. They say the United Nations Mission in
Sudan (UNMIS), mostly composed of Egyptian nationals, offered no help
while their people were arrested and killed just outside the UN compound
near Kadugli.
“The UN is useless,” says Gango. “The Egyptian
peacekeeping force stood by and did nothing while civilians were killed
just outside the UN compound.”
Hamouda, more diplomatic, says the contingent
is “not neutral.” He claims that government forces have even used UN
helicopters and trucks in their operations against Sudanese civilians.
No comment was available from the United Nations at time of publication.
As a tactical remedy for the government’s
aerial bombardments, the Sudanese refugees demand a no-fly zone over the
states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. But when it comes to their
strategic demands, opinions differ. Ideas of uniting with South Sudan,
achieving independence or forming a confederation with the South are all
thrown into the air. They all agree that no progress can be made with
the current government in Khartoum, led by Omar Bashir.
“There must be regime change,” says Gango. “With the current regime there can be no hope for peace.”
The mention of Israel lights a glimmer of hope
in the eyes of Hamouda. He says that he recently tried to meet with
Israeli representatives while in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, but
was politely put off.
“We believe Israel can help us because you
suffered discrimination. You suffered the Holocaust,” he says. “Israel
has the power to push the international community to act. We would like
to reach the people [of Israel], not just the government.”
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