Sudan's forgotten victims
Lindsey Hilsum reports from south of the Nuba mountains, a disputed border region that is threatening to derail the peaceful separation of North and South Sudan.
The Nuba people of Sudan are both celebrated and forgotten.
Much studied by anthropologists, photographed by George Rodger in the 1950s and filmed by Leni Riefenstahl in the 1969s and 70s, they became famous for their spear-throwing, wrestling and traditional customs. But under the government of Omar al-Bashir they have been marginalised and targeted, their plight receiving less attention than that of the people of Darfur or Southern Sudan.
Now the Nuba are under attack again.
Reports from Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan state, talk of soldiers going house to house, pulling out Nuba men for detention or worse. Every day brings more reports of bombing of towns and villages from Sudan government Antonovs and Migs, and raids by helicopter gunships.
Pictures from DigitalGlobe for Satellite Sentinel Project appear to show Sudanese infantry, rocket launchers and warplanes near rebel positions in North Kordofan
“People run to the bomb shelters whenever they hear a plane,” said a woman I spoke to today. I won’t give her name or say exactly where she is, because she fears the consequences of speaking out. “Last Sunday several bombs hit Kurchi. Five children were killed. One of the mothers asked me: why is our government bombing us?”
It’s a good question. It seems the government in Khartoum has decided that force is the only way to deal with a people who resent its authority. Next week South Sudan will celebrate Independence. The Nuba know they won’t get Independence but they’d like more autonomy. The government in Khartoum, having lost South Sudan, now fears losing more territory.
The government made its intention clear when it made Ahmed Haroun candidate for governor in Southern Kordofan. He’s been indicted for war crimes in Darfur where he was, ironically enough, head of Humanitarian Affairs. The Nuba candidate was a former rebel leader, who had fought in the last war against Khartoum. He lost, but the Nuba say the election was rigged.
They refuse to accept Haroun. The forces he represents responded exactly as they did in Darfur, with bombs, house-to-house searches and attacks by militia.
So the seeds of a renewed conflict have been sown. A ceasefire agreement between the Khartoum government and the south was signed on Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital. But President al-Bashir said on Friday that the northern army would continue military operations against the rebels in Southern Kordofan.
No one I’ve spoken to thinks the peace deal will stick. It hasn’t stopped the attacks. Newly independent South Sudan is unlikely to come to the aid of the Nuba, because the new state’s leaders want peace with the north. President al-Bashir is even due to speak at the Independence celebrations.
Um Masar ali Juma, a Nuba Member of Parliament who escaped to the South Sudan capital, Juba, where I met her, was pessimistic.
“There cannot be peace in the Nuba Mountains as long as the government in Khartoum is still dropping bombs on civilians,” she said. “If they wanted to solve any problems with the Nuba Mountains or South Kordofan, they wouldn’t be bombing the people.”