---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 10:36 PM Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] Fwd: Nuba - more updates To: Group <[email protected]>
1. From sources on the ground: - "Governor Haroun says peace and stability is returning to Southern Kordofan - lies!" - Fighting occurred between Talodi Nuba and Salamat June 24 in the morning. 8 bombs were heard. There were 4 SAF vehicles with mounted guns from Talodi town to the South West. - SAF artillery was used outside Talodi Nuba. No casualty numbers but Talodi Nuba is now empty of people who fled to Talodi town. - After 2pm June 24, MiG was sighted around Kauda airstrip. It fired total of 10 to 12 rounds from two passes over the area and was very low to the ground when firing. Casualties unknown. - Women, children and infirm among those increasingly seeking refuge in mountain caves. - June 26 there was bombing in Kurchi - 32 wounded and 16 dead - 3 children - infants also among wounded (one 8mths and three 3 yrs). Local medical facilities stretched to beyond capacity and with minimum supplies. - UNMIS apparently reported no activities in Nuba on 26 June but eyewitness reports and pictures say otherwise. UNMIS has lost all credibility among Nubans who claim predominantly Egyptian force is cooperating with SAF. END1 2. BBC - 27 June 2011 CUE: There are fresh reports of bombing raids by government forces in the Sudanese region of South Kordofan. In the latest attack on Sunday, humanitarian agencies report that sixteen people were killed. At the beginning of June the Sudanese government launched an offensive in this area which lies just inside the north of Sudan. It said it was disarming rebels. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the attacks. Our East Africa Correspondent, Will Ross reports. ) Humanitarian sources told the BBC that five bombs were dropped from an Antonov aircraft on the village of Kurchi in South Kordofan. Sixteen people were killed - including an eight month old baby and a three year old. The BBC has seen disturbing photos of the dead - in some cases their bodies torn apart by the bombs. The Sudanese government recently said it was disarming rebels there - people who once fought with southern soldiers but now live north of the border. Three weeks of aerial and ground attacks have displaced more than seventy thousand people END2 3. Civilians “killed” in South Kordofan air attacks as mediators scramble to broker cease-fire June 26, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Aerial bombardment and artillery have continued in Sudan’s border state of South Kordofan amid reports of civilian causalities, according to the UN. Meanwhile, mediators of the African Union have intensified efforts to broker an agreement to cease hostilities between the warring sides in South Kordofan, according to a senior official of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). The UN humanitarian office said in its latest report that sporadic air attacks and artillery by Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) of north Sudan had targeted areas inhabited by the non-Arab Nuba population in eastern and southern Nuba Mountains. Fighting in Sudan’s north-south border state of South Kordofan broke out on 5 June as SAF moved to disarm fighters aligned with South Sudan, which is due to become an independent state on 9 July. More than 70,000 people fled their homes as the fighting escalated into aerial bombardment and heavy artillery, according to UN estimates, amid reports of widespread atrocities committed by SAF against the Nuba population, which largely sided with South Sudan during the years of Sudan’s civil wars. Last week the UN condemned what it terms as the targeting of South Kordofan people “along ethnic lines.” It also said that relief efforts are hampered by the government’s restrictions on movement. Citing sources on the ground, the UN said one woman was killed and four others, including children, sustained injuries as a result of an air attack on Koda area on 22 June. The UN report pointed out that several rockets fell near the office of the UN Mission in Sudan on Friday. It went on to say that the humanitarian situation remains uncertain due to the restrictions imposed on the movement of aid workers. The UN Humanitarian office also said that the local authorities are still detaining four southern Sudanese employees of the UN Mission in Sudan since they were arrested on Wednesday by the military intelligence at the airport of South Kordofan’s capital of Kadugli. In a related development, the secretary-general of the SPLM in north Sudan, Yasir Arman, told Sudan Tribune on Sunday from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa that AU mediators led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki had been engaged in active efforts to broker an agreement to cease hostilities in South Kordofan. Arman revealed that Mbeki and his aides arranged a direct meeting in Addis Ababa between a delegation of the SPLM in north Sudan led by its chairman Malik Aggar and a government delegation led the presidential assistant Nafi Ali Nafi. The SPLM official pointed out that the mediation team is striving to bring the two sides to sign a political agreement and another agreement to cease hostilities in Sout Kordofan in the coming few hours. According to Arman, the SPLM representatives presented three-page paper identifying issues of contention in South Kordofan while the government delegation proposed a two-page paper on the issues. He further added that Mbeki had put forward proposals for a solution and was currently trying to persuade the two sides to sign. Arman told Sudan Tribune that the talks were focusing on the issues of the transitional areas, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, as well as on new constitutional arrangements. (ST) END3 4. SPLM urges UNSC to issue resolution to impose no-fly zone over S Kordofan Monday, 27 June 2011 10:23 Miraya FM The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Kordofan has called on the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over the state and to discuss what the movement describes as 'genocide.' In an exclusive interview with Radio Miraya on Sunday, Gammar Dalman, advisor to the SPLM Chairman accused the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) of carrying out more than 70 bombing raids in the state. The state's governor, Ahmed Haroun, refuted the SPLM allegations. In a press statement, Harroun said the SPLM was trying to deflect attention and to violate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. He said the state government is committed to holding popular consultations. Haroun stressed that he is ready to accept the initiative of the National Consensus Alliance for a cease fire and provision of relief and aid to people displaced by the fighting. Last Friday, humanitarian agencies in the state said they did not have access to tens of thousands of people displaced in the area. http://www.mirayafm.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6263:splm-calls-unsc-to-issue-resolution-to-impose-no-flight-zone-on-south-kordofan-state&catid=85&Itemid=278 END4 5. Below is the text of the Times article which I circulated earlier today - this is easier to read than the scan. 'This slaughter is an attempt to erase our culture and society'. Tristan McConnell Nairobi Last updated June 27 2011 12:01AM The shelling came first. Then soldiers swept through the town followed by attacks from Antonov bombers and MiG fighter jets. Once the northern troops of the Sudan Armed Forces had taken control of parts of Kadugli, the slaughter began. Security forces went from house to house dragging out opposition supporters, community leaders, intellectuals or — according to an account given to The Times by a British aid worker in the area at the time — anyone who was black. “They were executed, sometimes with a bullet in the head but often their throats were cut,” said the man who has worked in Sudan for more than 20 years. “You are forced onto the ground, a knee put in your back, your head lifted up and your throat slit, just like a goat,” he said. The ethnic attacks bear the hallmarks of the genocidal conflict in Darfur for which President al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court. Kadugli is the capital of South Kordofan, a region focused on the Nuba mountains in the geographic centre of Sudan. During the 22-year north-south civil war, the Nuba people fought with the south, and its Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). Under the deal that ended the war, the south will secede next month. But the Nuba, who will be marooned in the north, fear for their future, with South Kordofan dominated by Arab northerners. The fighting in South Kordofan began on June 6 after Ahmed Haroun, the state governor and a Khartoum loyalist — who like Mr al-Bashir is wanted by the ICC for war crimes — left Kadugli. The first artillery targeted the house of Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, the most senior local official of the SPLM. Mr al-Bashir says his forces are putting down a rebellion in South Kordofan; the Nuba say they are fighting to live. “We are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people in a final attempt to erase our culture and society,” Kadugli’s Anglican bishop said last week. “This is a war of domination and eradication . . . of terror by the Government of Sudan against their people,” said the Right Reverend Andudu Adam Elnail. The UN estimates that at least 73,000 people have fled the fighting this month. At least one person was killed yesterday when a train carrying southern migrants was attacked in the region. A UN official said that members of the Misseriya tribe, which is loyal to Khartoum, were behind the attack. With South Kordofan closed to outsiders, no one knows how many have been killed, but reports of atrocities are trickling out. “Anyone living in this area is fair game,” said the aid worker. “Whether you’re carrying a hoe or an AK47 you are the enemy.” END5 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +249 919 695 362 (Sudan mobile) +27 82 853 3556 (South Africa mobile) +44 750 304 1790 (UK/international) +88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone) PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation -- The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. 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