Safe in Juba, Refugees from South Kordofan Recount Horrors
Posted by Matt Brown and Laura Heaton on Jul 19, 2011
JUBA, South Sudan -- The embattled area of the Nuba Mountains is
squarely situated in North Sudan, but the recent separation of the
South poses new challenges for what in the past two months has become
the region’s latest deadly front. As the festive mood surrounding the
South’s independence celebration tapered off, many journalists in town
for the big day turned attention – quietly, given the immense
sensitivities – toward the conflict unfolding just over the new
international border. Much of the reporting about the atrocities being
committed by Khartoum-aligned soldiers and militias has relied upon
secondhand information, often filtered through layers of sources who
have access to satellite phones and email.
But the options for now traveling to the Nuba Mountains and witnessing
the conflict first-hand narrowed significantly when the once-fluid
border became a hard international boundary. The worst-case scenarios
that one must consider when weighing travel into an active conflict
zone just got markedly more serious. Pilots fear having their planes
shot out of the sky, Enough was told.
Even among people with resources, relatively few Nubans are making
their way out of the area. In the month and a half since the offensive
there began, only about 200 or 300 Nubans have arrived in Juba. Enough
met with some Nuban aid workers who were in Kadugli when the violence
began, and who told harrowing stories about the first days of the
crisis and how they managed to escape.
Even before the violence erupted in early June, a rights activist
named Peter said that staff of his organization had been threatened.
Their work “was seen as a threat because the regime does not want an
enlightened people who know their rights,” Peter said.
On June 5, Peter was in the market when a truckload of soldiers
arrived. They started shooting in the air at first. People ran in all
directions. “Then they started targeting people who they thought were
part of the SPLM,” Peter said. Even though he is not part of the SPLM,
he realized that his work would put him and his family in grave
danger. The government-aligned soldiers and militias were targeting
specific individuals through a “carefully organized” campaign.
Peter tried to find a way to get his family out of Kadugli, but it
took two more days until they could find a car and a group of people
also willing to attempt to drive out of town. In the meantime, he and
his family hid in their home.
Their house was in a neighborhood where there were many NCP
supporters, and on the first day of fighting guns were distributed in
the community. “The supporters of the NCP – civilians, just civilians
– would shoot from their house to show that this is a secure house,”
Peter said. “The houses that did not have sound of guns shooting is
probably those of the enemy.”
After learning that helicopter gunships were “hunting” people who were
trying to escape Kadugli toward SPLA positions, Peter and his family
opted to travel out of town via the northern route. He credits this
counter-intuitive decision with saving their lives.
“They probably believed that if we are associated with the SPLA, we
would not be brave enough to travel on this side.” Their car was
stopped at a roadblock, and some of the men, including Peter, were
beaten, but eventually they were allowed to pass. The next day Peter
learned through a friend affiliated with the Khartoum-backed Popular
Defense Forces that his name and photo were included on the list of
people the militia was instructed to track down and kill.
For a couple of weeks after he arrived in Juba, Peter spoke daily with
his friend in the PDF to follow the events in Kadugli. “He told me he
did not want to do what the PDF was doing, but he was given a gun,”
Peter said, adding that the man had expressed concern that his
commander suspected he might be sympathetic to the Nuba.
Weeks ago Peter’s friend called him distraught about the mass graves
near Tilo primary school that were recently pinpointed by satellite
images. “He saw mass graves with his own eyes. He saw people loaded
into trucks (...) and one morning he counted more than 20 bodies.”
There were other small graves as well with six or seven bodies,
Peter’s friend told him.
But since June 20 Peter has not been able to reach his friend and now
suspects that their phone calls were traced. “I am really feeling
guilty about this, if that is the reason he was killed,” he said. “I
am sure if he was still alive he would have called me, he should have
called me.”
After the summary executions in and around Kadugli, the
northern-aligned forces turned their attention to the mountains to the
east and the SPLA-held region around the town of Kauda. This time,
death came from above.
“When the MiGs come, we run for the bomb shelters,” said a Sudanese
aid worker who fled Kauda for Juba just over a week ago.
Antonov cargo planes with payloads of heavy ordnance and MiG fighter
jets showered the region with bombs sending terrified civilians
running for shelter in mountain caves. Those caught out during bombing
raids were cut in half by shrapnel. Others were critically wounded and
have flooded local clinics in the past few weeks. The death and
destruction has been captured in gruesome and haunting photos and
video that Enough has witnessed.
The Sudanese aid worker from Kauda made it out on one of the last
humanitarian flights from the region before South Sudan’s independence
on July 9th. She is safe in Juba, but she is desperate to go back to
continue assisting those who were not fortunate enough to flee. With
flights to the region suspended indefinitely, she doesn’t know when
she will return.
“I am worried about safety if I go back,” she said. “But I am more
worried when I am out of the area and I think about what is happening
to my people.”
Photo: Satellite image showing three excavated areas that corroborate
allegations of mass graves in South Kordofan (Satellite Sentinel
Project)
* Peace
* Sudan
* Sudan Now
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