---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Jean-Francois Darcq" <[email protected]> Date: 1 Jun 2015 17:33 Subject: Fwd: Flash Update - Four Cluster bombs dropped in South Kordofan and Forcible relocations in Blue Nile states.. To: "elisabethjanaina" <[email protected]> Cc:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "South Kordofan Blue Nile Coordination Unit" <[email protected]> Date: 1 Jun 2015 17:01 Subject: Flash Update - Four Cluster bombs dropped in South Kordofan and Forcible relocations in Blue Nile states.. To: Cc: Dear colleagues, supporters, I think that the following updates, although lengthy, are worth taking a few minutes to read. The civilians of the Nuba Mountains region continue to be the victims of aerial bombardment from the Sudan government. - 25 MAY: At approx. 12:30, two SAF jet fighters dropped three bombs that landed in Kauda on civilian locations (on a church/school compound and on a residential house) and on the civil administration headquarters of the SPLM-N. The bombs killed one girl, wounded her mother, and destroyed the house. Another child that was injured in this aerial attack died on 27 May. - 25 MAY: At approx. 13:45, a drone flew around the area, and circled over Kauda several times. These drones provide both high resolution photographs and GPS data when they return to their SAF bases. - 27 MAY: At approx. 07:30, two jet fighters dropped four cluster bombs in Kauda. All four landed in populated residential areas and all four bombs contained submunitions, but the bombs did not deploy the submunitions properly. - 27 MAY: At approx. 11:00, an Antonov dropped at least twelve bombs near around the “Wednesday Market” of upper Kauda. Three people were injured and some livestock were killed and 6 houses were totally destroyed including all of the food stocks and personal belongings of the owners, leaving them not only utterly destitute as the hunger season peaks but very likely, unable to cultivate in order to produce food stocks for the following year. These households may feel their only option for survival is to now make the long journey on foot to Yida in Unity State, South Sudan. The blatant brutality of these attacks on unambiguously civilian targets is extremely worrisome. It is assumed that the bombing runs were based on the GPS and photographic information gathered by the drone flight on 25 May. The Antonov bombs targeted a weekly market at the time when it would be most populated, by traders and customers, mostly women with young children. That casualties were miraculously low is attributable in large part to the effective training given by local civil society on self-protection measures. The four Soviet-made RBK-500 cluster bombs dropped on May 27 contain AO-2.5 RT submunitions which are intended to deploy over 100 individual submunitions, each of which according to the manufacturer's claim, has a killing radius of up to 20 meters. Thus each bomb has a “deadly footprint” of up to 4,800 square meters. In the densely populated areas of Kauda, one can find up to 10 homes in such an area, each with 5-10 people: a high proportion of whom are women and children. If the cluster bombs had deployed properly, the fatalities and injuries would have been utterly horrific – these bombs were dropped at a time when family members are all still at home getting ready for the day, children waking up, people walking between houses to get water, start cooking fires and tending to livestock. If the continuation of such human rights violations is to be stopped, it is critical that sufficient national, regional and international pressure be brought to bear on the Sudan government immediately. Our concern is that unless the Government incurs much greater political costs from such actions, we will continue to see many more such incidences over the coming days, weeks and months. The enormous luck which kept casualties so low last week cannot be expected to last. Blue Nile State Flash Update: The civilian population in the Ingessena Hills also continues to face enourmous stress at the hands of the Sudan government, in association with the SAF and the related RSFs. The following is produced by Sudan Democracy First Group, and provides more detailed information than what was shared by the CU last week. Blue Nile State: Under Fire SDFG Update Vol. 3 No. 13 (28 May 2015) Before Al Gareeda newspaper was indefinitely suspended by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), as part of a mass censorship of Khartoum newspapers, the newspaper had been the first to break the news about the torching of villages and forcible relocation of thousands of villagers in Blue Nile state. Al Gareeda reported on fires that consumed the villages of Maganza, Midyam and Bagis in the Bau locality. The newspaper’s local correspondent estimated the number of those left homeless by the fires at 6,872 and quoted a survivor as saying “we have suffered greatly from the effects of the war that has reignited in the region in 2011, but these village fires are the worst we have ever experienced.” Residents appealed to state authorities to investigate the incident, and to humanitarian agencies, both national and international, to come to their assistance. According to Al Gareeda, when asked to comment, the Commissioner of Bau locality declined to comment on the cause of the fires. While news of these events has been slow to trickle down to national and international audiences, local community activists and human rights monitors, Funj Youth Development Association (FYDA), have been reporting that the village burnings began in April, signaling a new wave of scorched earth tactics in the government’s counterinsurgency campaign against the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement / Army-North (SPLM/A-N) in Blue Nile. The Blue Nile Human Rights and Peace Center documented these developments in a statement issued on 27 May (Arabic), which prompted the UN Resident Coordinator to issue a strong expression of concern (PDF) for the populations affected by these forcible evictions and relocations. According to reports, the first incident occurred on 10 April, when government soldiers stormed the village of Midyam Eljabal, evicted villagers from their huts, looted their possessions, and burned the entire village to the ground. Another wave of attacks occurred on the villages of Maganza and Bagis on 11 and 12 May. These two attacks appeared to be in retaliation for the losses government soldiers sustained in an encounter with the SPLA-N fighters on 10 May. The clash occurred not far from the two villages, near Kilgu, south west of Damazin. Local activists reported that the soldiers surrounded Maganza, ordered the locals to gather at a specific point outside the village, and then set fire to homes, shops, mills, water points and the market. The village was left in ashes. The locals were not allowed to take with them any of their belongings. The same scenario was repeated the next day in Bagis. Local activists estimate the number of houses burnt to be close to 6,000. The displaced, forced to stay in the open for three days, were later trucked to Azaza, Algari, Wadafodi, Shanisha Baidha, Hamda and Umbarid in Roseires locality on the east bank of Blue Nile River by security officials operating trucks brought in from Ed Damazin. The number of people affected is unknown. Figures vary from the 6,872 reported by Al Gareeda for the three villages, to approximately 30,000 according to local community activists who cite other villages that have experienced the same scenario: Gambarda, Galfouk, Abugarin, Midyam Masalit, Salbel and Fadamiya. The displaced from these villages were similarly relocated in Rosairis locality. Decisive Summer Continues The Government of Sudan (GoS) has a long record of unleashing such campaigns against entire communities of populations it suspects of being supportive of rebels on account of their ethnicity. This type of campaign has become a fixed feature of the GoS’s current Decisive Summer Campaigns against the rebel Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), and populations designated as “rebel supporters.” These latest attacks on civilians appear to be prompted by the unraveling of the government’s Decisive Summer Campaign in Blue Nile. The Minister of Defense Abdel-Rahim Ahmed Hussein launched the campaign in person in a fiery speech in Ed Damazin on 3 October 2014, declaring as its objective the clearing of SPLA-N forces from the southwestern part of the state, along the border with Maban county in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state, itself a stronghold for South Sudanese rebels. To preempt the move, the SPLM-N sent mobile units in the heartlands of government-controlled areas in the Ingessana Hills, putting government forces on the defensive. The SPLA-N has since managed to control the town of Jam, and conducted hit and run operations close to Ed Damazin, the state capital. Full control of the Ingessana Hills, 40 km southwest of Ed Damazin, has become an important military target for government forces. As the home area of Malik Agar, Chairman of the SPLM/A-N and of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, the Hills hold symbolic value. As such the government considers the population in the Hills—named after the majority ethnic group in the area, the Ingessana people—the natural constituency and civilian base of SPLA-N. The area has thus been the target of deliberate and indiscriminate aerial bombings and the site of burned villages and farms since the outbreak of the war, as SDFG reported as early as 2012 (Arabic). Humanitarian Urgency The newly displaced people, who lost all of their belongings, are now facing severe humanitarian conditions in their areas of relocation in El Roseires locality. They suffer from a lack of adequate shelter, remaining exposed to the elements, and increasing the risks of catching preventable diseases, including malaria and diarrhea, particularly for children and the elderly. Attempts by humanitarian agencies present in the area, including those of the United Nations, to reach the displaced in order to assess and provide for their needs, have been frustrated by government blockages. The humanitarian blockade also extends to the public who expressed solidarity with victims. Resident of El Roseires locality, who collected food items from the local market, reported that they were harassed by security agents and not allowed to access the displaced. Local humanitarian organizations seen as largely controlled by the government are reported to be the only ones allowed to provide assistance to the displaced, namely Pan-Care and Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS). Since the beginning of the war, the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) has informed international humanitarian organizations that assistance for civilians in Blue Nile State will be provided by national NGOs, and that any support from international organizations should be channeled through a committee that has been established in the state for this purpose The incoming the rainy season will only exacerbate the displaced community’s plight. The remote areas to which they were relocated are usually inaccessible during the rainy season. Obtaining food, medicine and life saving medicines will be quite challenging when the roads become impassable. Food insecurity is inevitable for the short and medium run. The poor capacity to plant for the displaced that left behind their land in former villages will make it impossible for them to take advantage of the agricultural season that usually starts in June. As they have already missed planting their home farms (known locally as the Jubraka) and anticipating tensions that could arise due to competition over cultivable land with the local populations, these communities will likely be unable to feed their families. In this grave context, it is imperative for regional and international actors invested in a future peaceful and democratic Sudan to use their influence and leverage on the GoS to remind it to abide by internationally-recognized laws prohibiting wartime attacks on civilians. The international community should publicly denounce the denial of humanitarian access to relief workers and the blockage of relief supplies to populations that need them. The GoS itself, recently revived by elections resulting in a renewed five-year mandate, should take seriously its own overtures about a national dialogue process by taking the steps to create an environment conducive to a genuine process. That begins with ceasing deliberate attacks against civilians, as well as the destruction of their homes and the looting of their belongings. It further includes lifting any blockades, and allowing unrestricted humanitarian access to populations in need. Sudan Democracy First Group P.O. Box 250, Ntinda, Kampala, Uganda http://us7.campaignarchive2.com/?u=7acabab6ae470b89628f88514&id=6625daa914&e=405729c68b Thank you for your support and any actions possible, with respect to bringing accountability to bear on the Government of Sudan. Sincerely yours, Marv Koop Manager SKBN Coordination Unit +211 912 100 560 skype: skbncoordination [email protected] -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout --- 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]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14or%3DAy-TG3d0Cym8Cc8iz9Lh8GqGojqxRstqcpX1Sd3J2w%40mail.gmail.com. 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