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| Africa Horn | |
| Sudan air attacks causing 'huge suffering' | |
| 2011-06-15 | |
| [Al Jazeera] Sudan has stepped up air attacks in South Kordofan, a state on the south Sudan border, causing "huge suffering" to the civilian population and endangering emergency aid, the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... says. Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... between forces from the north, including both the Sudanese Armed Forces northern army - or SAF - and government-back forces,
"We are extremely concerned about the bombing campaign, which is causing huge suffering to the civilian population and endangering humanitarian assistance," Kouider Zerrouk, a front man for the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), told the AFP news agency. "The intensive bombing by SAF in the past week is continuing in Kadugli and Kauda, where jet fighters dropped 11 bombs at 1030 this morning, apparently targeting an airfield." Two bombs landed very close to the UNMIS compound in Kauda, which is situated just 150 metres from the airstrip. Intensified attacks Fears had been growing among civilians of intensified SAF air attacks on former rebel strongholds, where the indigenous Nuba peoples fought on the side of the SPLA during the devastating 1983-2005 civil war between north and south. "We reiterate our call on the SAF, the SPLA and other gangs who are involved in this conflict to allow immediate access to humanitarian agencies, stop military attacks agianst civilians and respect and protect them in accordance with international law," Zerrouk said. UNMIS was unable to provide details of casualties from the latest violence in South Kordofan. Late on Monday, a Sudan rights group said that more than 65 people had been killed in air raids carried out by Antonov bombers in different locations around South Kordofan over the past nine days. The Sudan Democracy First Group (SDGP), in a six-page report, accused the northern army of pursuing a genocidal campaign in the state, targeting the Nuba peoples and supported by the Popular Defence Forces, a feared civil war militia that now forms part of the Sudanese army. A northern army front man, Al-Sawarmi Khaled, denied that Khartoum's military actions were killing civilians, saying fighting was only between the army and rebels. "There are not any victims from the civilian people," he said. But speaking to Al Jizz on Tuesday, Tawanda Hondora, of the Africa department at "Some of them have decamped to the UN compound. Unfortunately, we have information that they are actually not safe. The UN is unable to provide them with security." Hondora said the Sudanese armed forces have been going to the UN camps and taking people from there. "Some of them have been shot and killed simply because they look to be Nuba, and therefore perceived to be sympathetic to the SPLA," he said. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Lets have a NFZ---we can use the Belgian special hairdresser brigade. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-06-15 02:02 |