Nafie says SPLM-N’s rebels defecting to Sudan’s army
January 12, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – An official in Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has claimed that a large number of fighters from the rebel group Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) are defecting to the army.
The meeting was chaired by President Bashir who devoted time to discussing the situation in the war-hit state of South Kordofan.
According to Nafie, who spoke to reporters afterward, the meeting received a report on the efforts of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to “assimilate a large number of fighters who renounced rebellion”.
“We have learned that some groups of fighters have returned and there are great and organised efforts by the armed forces to take them in and integrate them,” the NCP’s figure said.
He further pointed out that the report detailed efforts of mobilisation and contact in the rebel controlled area in order to persuade SPLM-N members to return to the fold and “dispel the falsehoods” the rebels use to gain followers.
Nafie said that the SPLM-N rebellion, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hilu, has nothing to do with Sudan or South Sudan but was rather a vehicle of foreign interference from the ruling party of the same name in the Republic of South Sudan.
Khartoum has accused its southern neighbors in Juba of supporting SPLM-N rebels. The rebels say that they are no longer affiliated to the South Sudan’s ruling party, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), since the South seceded from Sudan in July last year.
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the SPLM-N, Yasir Arman, has accused the government of targeting civilians in the areas they control by preventing humanitarian aid.
Arman said in a press release issued on Thursday that a new survey conducted by the SPLM-N revealed that more than 300,000 people had fled their homes in South Kordofan and more than 400,000 in Blue Nile state.
The rebel official noted that Khartoum continues to defy the international community by refusing to open humanitarian corridors to deliver food and aid to the displaced population in the two states, and they are considering this as “a war crime”.
Arman stressed that the international community has an obligation to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian assistance. He added that it’s time to break the silence over Khartoum’s use of “food as a weapon”.
Khartoum has refused to allow aid agencies into rebels-controlled areas since its army started fighting SPLM-N rebels in South Kordofan in June 2011 and in Blue Nile in September 2011.
The conflict in the two states has displaced approximately 417,000 people, more than 80,000 of them into neighbouring South Sudan, according to United Nation figures.
(ST)