---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2013 12:38:47 -0500 Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] 'Stop the planes': Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile To: Group <[email protected]>
1. 'STOP THE PLANES' By Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada Posted on 30 January 2013 “Just stop the planes.” That was the plea made by the feisty, determined Khadija when I interviewed her in front of the remains of her home in a small village in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan state last week. If only it could be that simple. It certainly ought to be. A month earlier a lumbering Sudanese Antonov aircraft had passed overhead and unleashed a deadly cargo of five bombs in rapid succession. Khadija was at the nearby market at the time and therefore escaped injury. But when she hurried back to her home, pure horror awaited her. One elderly woman, unable to run, had been literally blown apart and Khadija later undertook the grim task of collecting her neighbour’s body parts. A woman in her twenties, mother to five children and pregnant with her sixth, was cut in half by the vicious and totally unpredictable shrapnel that is the greatest peril of these cruel Antonov bombs. Khadija also found that her tukul had been burned by the bomb and that all of her clothing and worldly possessions had been destroyed. Another woman, just passing by at the time, lay with a shrapnel injury in her foot. Khadija’s story is one among very many that I heard. This campaign of death, fear and destruction against the civilian population of Southern Kordofan has been ongoing for close to 20 months now. Indiscriminate bombs are wantonly rolled out of the back of the Antonovs, flying high above, with no ability to guide them to proper military targets. And, inevitably, many of the bombs fall where civilians live, sleep, grow food, go to market, fetch water, pray or attend school. I travelled through numerous villages in the parts of Southern Kordofan now under the control of the armed opposition, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army – North (SPLA-N) and everywhere the accounts and visible evidence of the aerial bombardments were the same. Sometimes, fortunately, no one had been hurt. Other times nearly entire families had been killed. There was no community I visited that has been spared. And in none of the sites I inspected was there indication of a valid military target anywhere remotely close by. A father told me of his 10 and 5-year-old sons who ran to hide under the branches of a fruit tree when they heard the unmistakeable drone of an approaching Antonov in mid-November. This time the bomb fell almost directly beside the tree, killing them both. I saw the damage done, massive branches sheared off the tree and the bomb crater only 2 or 3 metres away. Another man took me to his home at the top of a hill. On 26 December 2012 he was a short distance away from his own house visiting his brother when the Antonov arrived. His home was in sight, but he could not reach it in time. On its first fly-pass the plane dropped three bombs and then returned to drop another three. The first of that second batch of bombs fell in his compound as he watched helplessly from an adjoining hill top. When the plane had left and he was able to rush to his home he found his mother, wife and 5-month-old daughter all dead. They had made it to the hoped-for safety of their foxhole, but the bomb itself landed less than a metre from where they were hiding. They did not stand a chance. Neither did the five people – a woman, her daughter, two nieces and a neighbouring boy – who hoped that a foxhole would keep them safe when an Antonov dropped two bombs on 18 December. It was chilling to stand where they would have been hiding and see how close the bomb had fallen: only four or five paces away. This relentless campaign of death raining down from the skies has killed or injured untold numbers of people over the past 20 months. Its impact, however, is more insidious than the harrowing toll of deaths and injuries alone. Because by now the mere mention of an Antonov, let alone the sound of its approach, is a source of panic and terror. People run for the nearest foxhole (nearly everyone has dug one in their compound) or they run for the safety of rocks and caves in the region’s Nuba Mountains. And they hide and they wait. And everything about their lives is turned upside down. While fleeing and hiding they cannot tend crops. They cannot look out for livestock. And day by day, therefore, food supplies have dwindled to nothing. Add to that the Sudanese government’s cruel refusal to allow independent humanitarian access to this area so that food and other relief can be distributed and the gravity of this crisis has become beyond measure. There is absolutely no doubt that this indefensible bombing campaign violates international humanitarian law – the repeated indiscriminate air attacks, as well as possibly direct attacks on civilians, by the Sudanese armed forces, constitute war crimes. So why does it attract so little international attention? Security Council resolutions urge and encourage but do not condemn and deplore what is happening. The Sudanese government plays games with UN, African Union and other officials, promising that aid access will open up, but consistently failing to follow through. I was asked “why” at every turn. “Why don’t we matter? Why doesn’t anyone care about us?” Or, as Khadija put it, why doesn’t someone just stop the planes. That is precisely what has to happen. http://livewire.amnesty.org/2013/01/30/stop-the-planes/ END1 2. Hepatitis outbreak kills 88 in South Sudan: aid agency By Hereward Holland JUBA | Sat Feb 2, 2013 10:15am EST (Reuters) - An outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 88 people in South Sudan after a surge in the virus hit refugee camps near the Sudanese border, an aid agency said on Saturday. More than 175,000 people have sought refuge in the new country of South Sudan after fleeing fighting in Sudan's restive border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, according to theUnited Nations. Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it had treated almost 4,000 patients since the outbreak was identified in camps in the northeast of South Sudan in July 2012. "We suspect this outbreak is far from over, and many more people will die," said MSF said in a statement. "We have been doing everything we can to care for people with hepatitis E, but there is no treatment for the disease." Fighting between Sudan's army and rebels flared up in South Kordofan and Blue Nile around South Sudan's secession from Sudan in July 2011, six years after a peace accord that ended decades of civil war between north and south. Tensions remain high between the rival Sudans and they have failed to implement a raft of agreements on border security and economic issues left over from their messy divorce. More than 112,000 Sudanese refugees live in camps affected by the hepatitis outbreak which are flooded in the rainy season and a parched wasteland in the dry season, MSF said. Hepatitis E causes liver infections and is spread by drinking water contaminated with faeces. (Reporting by Hereward Holland; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Andrew Roche) http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/02/us-southsudan-hepatitis-idUSBRE91108520130202 END2 3. Nearly 300 Sudanese refugees cross into S. Sudan daily: UNHCR January 31, 2012 (JUBA) – At least 300 refugees from Sudan’s South Kordofan are crossing the border into Yida, South Sudan’s largest refugee camp, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said. The influx of refugees, it says, calls for creation of new sites away from the “volatile” border area where Yida, currently hosting an estimated 61,000 Sudanese refugees, is located. The move, it added, seeks to ensure the safety of the refugees and maintain the civilian character of the settlement. However, while a new site was chosen in South Sudan’s Unity State for one such settlement, UNHCR says it plans to open other camps in the state in order to settle these people. About 20,000 people, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says, were in January displaced, following renewed fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N), which intensified in October last year. Meanwhile, over 67,000 displaced people, according to IOM and the government-initiated Voluntary Return and Resettlement Commission (VRRC), were registered in 13 localities of South Kodofan between January and November 2012. “IOM, in collaboration with the VRRC and with support from HAC [Humanitarian Aid Commission] in South Kordofan, is currently collating and verifying the number of returnees to South Kordofan following the October clashes,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) says in its 21-27 January bulletin. In addition, VRRC say it estimates that over 160,000 people from South Kordofan remain displaced in neighbouring states within Sudan. Absence of a proper framework to provide overall guidance to planning and implementation of return assistance, IOM maintains, is a major setback to emergency assistance provision in South Kordofan. In a related development, amnesty international has expressed concerns over the plight of people facing the brunt of conflict in Sudan’s conflict region. Alex Neve, the Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada, who visited South Kordofan, last week, said the bombings of innocent civilians in the region by Sudanese government forces violates international humanitarian law. “There is absolutely no doubt that this indefensible bombing campaign violates international humanitarian law – the repeated indiscriminate air attacks, as well as possibly direct attacks on civilians, by the Sudanese armed forces, constitute war crimes. So why does it attract so little international attention?” he asked. Neve, in an article published on Amnesty’s global human rights blog, also wondered why the UN Security Council resolutions only “urge and encourage but do not condemn and deplore” the negative things happening in South Kordofan. "The Sudanese government plays games with UN, African Union and other officials, promising that aid access will open up, but consistently failing to follow through.” He describes the Sudanese government’s “cruel” refusal to allow independent humanitarian access to this area as part of the tripartite arrangement, as an action “beyond measure”. (ST) http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article45365 END3 4. UNHCR to improve situation of Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia By Tesfa-Alem Tekle February 1, 2013 (ADDIS ABABA) – The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday that they will be working to stabilise the emergency phase of its response to the Sudanese and Somali refugee influxes in Ethiopia this year. Sudanese refugees from Blue Nile state line up to collect water in a camp (UNHCR/V.Tan) “UNHCR will improve conditions in the camps and will make the transition from emergency responses to more sustainable activities, thereby also reducing costs and encouraging self-reliance” UNHCR representative in Ethiopia, Kisut Gebregzabhir, toldSudan Tribune. The program, he said, includes the phasing out of water trucking in favor of more permanent piping systems, and construction of transitional shelters to replace tents. The UN refugee agency also says it committed to ensuring the timely provision of core relief items to refugees, and is currently building buffer stocks to cope with any new refugee influx. With regard to refugee issues, UNHCR says emergency preparedness and response mechanisms are its hallmark leadership and coordination role support for host communities around refugee camps is another important element to the agency’s strategy. Another crucial component of the UN refugee agency is to improve relations between refugee and local communities there to bolster the protection environment, making refugee-hosting areas safer for all, while encouraging both communities to share common services such as education and health facilities. REFUGEE INFLUX Since heavy fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in South Kordofan and Blue Nile States in July 2011, tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees have been forced to flee into neighboring Ethiopia and South Sudan. Most of these fleeing usually arrive at remote areas of Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz state and in South Sudan’s Unity and Upper Nile states. Ethiopia witnessed high influx of refugees in April and May last year, with an average rate of 200 to 300 people a day. However Kisut told Sudan Tribune that the current level of new arrivals from Sudan can be considered as modest, rather than an influx. “This however does not in any way suggest the end of the displacement situation,” he said adding, “UNHCR and its partners remain seized with making the necessary preparations to be able to effectively respond to any further displacements that may occur”. At the end of December 2012, Ethiopia hosted over 86,000 refugees from Sudan in the three camps (Sherkole, Tongo & Bambasi) in the Benishangul-Gumuz State as well as in one camp (Pugnido) in the Gambella State. The figure includes an estimated 20,000 displaced people from South Sudan’s Jonglei State, who are staying with the host communities along the border in Wantawo woreda, Gambella State. REPATRIATION OPERATION Currently there is no active repatriation operation to the thousands of Sudanese refugees. There has been a huge repatriation operation to Sudan between 2006 and 2009, helping over 36,000 refugees who volunteer to return. The series of repatriation operations resulted in closing of three refugee camps, which used to shelter them. There has never been an organized repatriation operation afterwards. REFUGEE FIGURES Ethiopia has increasingly been very welcoming to refugees crossing to its territory from neighboring African countries. Every month, Ethiopia generously receives thousands of new refugees’ who flee conflicts at their home country. The country, for instance, currently hosts more than 91,000 Sudanese refugees. In addition to the Sudanese refugees, the horn of Africa’s nation also shelters more than 214,000 Somali refugees, 61,000 Eritreans and over 4,000 refugees from other African countries. Last year, Ethiopia received more than 25,000 Somalis – making it the largest recipient of Somali refugees in the region after Kenya. (ST) http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article45372 END4 5. Blue Nile Emerging: Horrors Without End and a Familiar International Acquiescence: A brief compendium Eric Reeves, February 2, 2013 Three recent assessments missions to Blue Nile have powerfully expanded our view of the vast crisis in this desperate region, as well as of the better reported humanitarian crisis engineered by Khartoum in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan. Reports from Human Rights Watch, Aegis Trust and Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART)(UK), and the intrepid Tomo Kriznar all provide exceedingly grim accounts deriving from recent assessment missions on the ground. Information about and links to these critically important accounts appear below. Previously, our view of Blue Nile, where conflict has raged since September 1, 2011, has been shaped largely by the ghastly reports of refugees who have poured into Upper Nile (South Sudan) from Blue Nile. An important exception from 2011 is the "Field Report on Blue Nile" from the Enough Project, November 29, 2011, which provided early insight into the character of the violence. These refugee accounts in themselves make for extremely grim reading, and reveal the clear determination of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime to destroy African civilian life as part of its counter-insurgency strategy against the indigenous rebellion led by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-N). The tools of this vicious campaign are village destruction, burning of foodstocks, brutal rapes and murders, and unrelenting aerial assault, making agricultural production among those who have been ethnically-targeted virtually impossible. John Ging, head of humanitarian operations for the UN, declared last month about Blue Nile and South Kordofan, "nearly one million people are in dire need, but out of reach of aid workers, forcing some to rely on roots and leaves for food" (January 8, 2013). These people are "out of reach" because Khartoum has imposed a total humanitarian relief blockade on the two regions, and has adamantly refused to accept the access proposal made exactly one year ago by the UN, the African Union, and the Arab League (indeed, the Khartoum regime claims that, "Blue Nile is getting back to normal"). Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rates are consistently reported above the "emergency threshold," sometimes well above that threshold. Significant rates of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM)—which can prove rapidly fatal in children under five—have been reported from the camps in South Sudan and spot assessments in the Nuba Mountains. It is hardly surprising that the comparison to Darfur has been made often, here for Aegis and HART by Mukesh Kapila, former chief humanitarian coordinator for Sudan; Kapila was forced to resign from his post in 2004 because of blunt comments about the realities of genocidal destruction in Darfur (BBC, March 2004). He was just as blunt in speaking about the mission organized by Aegis Trust and HART: "'I witnessed the 21st century's first genocide in Darfur during my time as UN Chief in Sudan in 2003-2004. Returning to Sudan a decade later, I saw the same tactics of systematic ethnic cleansing in full play in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile,' says Dr Kapila, whose visit to the two areas was organised by the Aegis Trust in conjunction with the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART)." • A selection of what we have heard previously about Blue Nile: [i] "Fresh fighting in Sudan [Blue Nile/Southern Kordofan] after US famine warning," Agence France Presse, January 19, 2012 [ii] "Blue Nile terror as Sudan air strikes cause havoc," October 10, 2011 [iii] "Aid Agencies Fear for Survival of Sudan’s Blue Nile Refugees," Voice of America, June 20, 2012 [iv] "Sudan: Blue Nile Civilians Describe Attacks, Abuses," Human Rights Watch, April 22, 2012 [Civilians are bearing the brunt of abuses in Sudan’s simmering border conflict in Blue Nile state, Human Rights Watch said today, based on a research trip in April 2012"], http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/04/23/sudan-blue-nile-civilians-describe-attac... [v] "Sudan refugees reduced to eating leaves, bark," Agence France-Presse, June 20, 2012 [vi] "Sudan forces accused of killings, rape [in Blue Nile]," Agence France-Presse, November 1, 2011 (vii) "As refugee numbers [from Blue Nile] swell, disease puts pressure on relief efforts," (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), September 21, 2012) [vii] "900,000 needy blocked from aid in Sudan's [Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains]," Associated Press, January 8, 2013 LINKS TO THE MORE EXTENSIVE ACCOUNTS RECENTLY CONDUCTED IN BLUE NILE ITSELF BY: • Aegis Trust/HART • Human Rights Watch • Tomo Kriznar: [1] "Returning to Blue Nile and to the Nuba Mountains," Aegis Trust/HART, January 18, 2013, http://www.aegistrust.org/index.php/Campaigns-Policy-and-Research/former-un-sudan-chief-visits-the-countrys-warzones-warns-of-potential-for-another-darfur-scale-catastrophe.html [2] Human Rights Watch: (a) "Sudan: Bombardment of Civilians in Blue Nile and South Kordofan," December 10, 2012, http://www.hrw.org/features/sudan-bombardment-civilians-blue-nile-and-south... (b) "Under Siege: Indiscriminate Bombing and Abuses in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile State," December 12, 2012 http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/12/12/under-siege... [3] Tomo Kriznar has also released video reporting from the ground in Blue Nile at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjoPFXsH2Qs. This powerful documentary gives voice to the people of Blue Nile, with extremely revealing and technically impressive video and audio recordings. **** It is impossible to escape the conclusion reading these reports and others—and viewing the extensive videography and photography from the Nuba Mountains as well as this of Blue Nile—that Khartoum's counterinsurgency campaign is based on deliberate, widespread, ethnically-targeted human destruction and displacement. Thousands have already died from violence and its deadly aftermath, although we have no way of knowing how many; hundreds of thousands are at acute risk of disease and malnutrition—or have already fled to South Sudan. UNHCR has registered 207,000 refugees as of January 29, 2013; tens of thousands have fled to Ethiopia; the total number is certainly higher and growing by the day—thousands every week in Unity and Upper Nile States. Altogether, the UN estimates that almost 1 million people have been displaced or are in desperate need. In what sense, then, is it inappropriate to invoke the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)? “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: [a] Killing members of the group; [b] Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; [c] Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; [d] Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [e] Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” The question, in fact, is not which of these acts has been committed; as in Darfur, the question is which have not. The larger question is why this has mattered so little to the international community. END5 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan, South Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile) +27 82 050 1235 (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. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.co.za/group/sudan-john-ashworth --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
