UNHCR condemns air raid on refugees in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state
January 24, 2012 (JUBA/KHARTOUM) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday strongly condemned an air raid which reportedly occurred in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state on Monday.
UNHCR said that it is believed that at least one boy was injured and 14 other people are missing in the aftermath of the aerial bombing which targeted a refugee transit site in Elfoj, located less than 10 kilometres from the border with Sudan.
The refugee agency expressed alarm over the attack on vulnerable refugees fleeing the violence in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.
Teresa Ongaro, the UNHCR’s senior external relations officer told Sudan Tribune on Wednesday that the organisation is deeply concerned about the welfare of refugees in the region, saying the state government and the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) had embarked on an assessment of the situation.
“What we are really concerned about right now is the plight and welfare of those refugees in the region. We urge state authorities and the UN to protect them from such forms of violence,” Ongaro said by phone.
A team from UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) who had begun supervising relocation
operations for the refugees, reportedly fled for safety during the first round of bombings, while several jumped out of the trucks and scattered.
“After the bombings, agency staff rapidly mobilised the refugees. The convoy left for a safe location some 70km from the border with 1,140 individuals on board. This brought to 11,477 the total number of refugees moved from Elfoj since relocation operations started on January 6th,” reads the UNHCR’s statement, adding that about 4,000 more refugees relocated spontaneously from Elfoj.
The UNHCR says that more than 20,000 refugees have relocated spontaneously or with the assistance of the international community from border areas to new settlements in Upper Nile and Unity states.
Since August last year, UNHCR estimates that more than 78,000 people have fled Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, out of which over 54,000 are in South Sudan’s Upper Nile and 24,000 in Unity states.
In a separate interview, Peter Lam Both, the Upper Nile government spokesperson confirmed Monday’s attack, adding that another one took place on Sunday in a village within Maban County killing three people and injuring at least four.
There was no independent confirmation of the second attack referred to by the state official.
Sudan army spokesperson Al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad denied the reports.
“Our troops have nothing to do with it at all with the bombing in the South and the Government of Southern Sudan has no evidence proving the involvement of our forces in this incident” he was quoted as saying by the independent al-Sahafa newspaper.
Khartoum was accused last November of a similar raid on Yida refugee camp in the same state. This camp housed thousands of people who have fled fighting in Sudan’s South Kordofan state.
South Sudan does not have air defence capability but earlier this month the US president Barack Obama added the country to the list of states which can receive military help from Washington. US officials at the time said that there are no immediate plans to sell any hardware to Juba.
South Sudan became an independent state last July following a referendum held a year ago in which southerners decided almost unanimously that they wanted to secede from the Arab-Muslim dominated north.
Despite Khartoum swiftly recognising the new state on its borders, tensions have escalated dramatically ever since between the two countries. The two sides traded accusations on supporting rebel groups on the other side of the border.
(ST)