Sudan using “scorched earth tactics” in Blue Nile: Amnesty
June 12, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – New satellite imagery and eyewitness testimonies from rebel-held areas in Sudan’s Blue Nile state show that Sudanese military forces have resorted to brutal scorched earth tactics to drive out the civilian population, Amnesty International (AI) said in a report published this week.
The findings are a result of an AI research mission in April to Blue Nile state and refugee camps in South Sudan’s Maban county.
CIVILIANS TARGETED
AI said civilians are being deliberately targeted in what appears to be a concerted strategy by the Sudanese government to clear the population out of rebel-held areas.
It says the tactics are reminiscent of those used in Sudan’s war-torn western Darfur region, which has endured 10 years of conflict.
“This systematic and deliberate targeting of civilians follows a disturbing pattern that was used by the Sudanese government to devastating effect in Darfur,” said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, Amnesty International’s Sudan researcher.
“Deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime. Given the scale, as well as the apparently systematic nature of these attacks, they may also constitute crimes against humanity”, he said.
Ingessana Hills – the birthplace of rebel leader Malik Agar, which lie 40kms southwest of the state capital, Damazin – has been particularly hard-hit, enduring multiple scorched earth offensives in 2012.
Satellite imagery gathered by AI shows at least eight villages in the area, which was periodically held by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-N), were destroyed in attacks by Sudanese military and their inhabitants displaced.
Witnesses reported that a further nine villages were also burned down, although AI was unable to verify these claims. They have also described bombing attacks as recent as April 2013 that killed children and other civilians.
Yusuf Fadil Muhammed lost his eight-year old daughter Dahia after she was hit in the head with shrapnel in an aerial attack in February near the village of Benamayo, in Kurmuk locality.
“[The Antonov plane] dropped a bomb, and I heard my wife cry out, ‘my child, my child, my child.’ The plane circled back and dropped two more bombs, and my neighbours yelled at me to get back down on the ground, to protect myself from the bombing. I said to them, ‘I can’t stay down; my child is dying’”, he told Amnesty.
Another two children, aged four and five were, also killed in the same attack.
The report includes harrowing testimony from some people that had to choose between carrying their children to safety or their elderly parents.
“Faced with attack, aerial bombardment and the prospect of starvation, those who are physically able have little choice but to flee – often after making painful decisions about who among the weakest should be left behind,” said Gallopin.
Some of those who were unable to run because of disability or age were burned alive in their homes, while others were reportedly shot dead by Sudanese troops and pro-government militia.
Witnesses say that during attacks soldiers and militiamen looted valuable possessions, including livestock, before systematically setting fire to houses.
Amnesty says many civilians in SPLM/A-N-held areas of Blue Nile state abandoned their villages as a result of the conflict and have spent many months living in makeshift, temporary shelters in the bush.
Vast areas of the state have been depopulated, and many villages in SPLM/A-N-held areas in the south and west of Blue Nile are either empty or sparsely inhabited.
One elderly man, who had been hiding in bushland near Khor Jidad, was killed last August after going out to look for food.
Thirty-nine-year-old Balla al-Beh Qasim, who was also in hiding, described the aftermath of the attack in horrific detail to Amnesty.
“One day in August 2012 he [the deceased man] went to get food in the morning with his donkey. He was on the road when he was hit by an Antonov. We went there in the evening to see what had happened. We found his head cut off and his legs cut off. His stomach was open and his hand was severed. Dogs were eating his corpse”, he said.
HUMANITARIAN SITUATION DIRE
Conflict erupted in neighbouring South Kordofan in June 2011, just prior to the South seceding from the north in July, spreading to Blue Nile state within a few months.
However, the latter conflict has received much less international attention due in part to the logistical difficulties of travelling to the area.
The humanitarian situation of those remaining in rebel-held areas remains dire and with continued bomb attacks preventing civilians from tending to their crops, food supplies have become increasingly scarce.
A number of displaced people told Amnesty that they were forced to live on poisonous roots that have to be soaked in water for days to become edible.
“After the Antonovs came … We could not eat. Sometimes we would spend two days without eating. Sometimes we would boil poisoned roots so we could eat them”, Assit al-Bushra Idriss, a woman from Boqish village in the Mayak area, told Amnesty.
“People would become sick frequently. Some of the children died because there was not enough food or their mothers didn’t have enough to eat to produce milk”, she added.
The Sudanese government continues to block humanitarian relief to civilians in rebel-held areas.
AI reports that more people have died from hunger, illness, and deprivation than as a direct result of the violence. Children and the elderly, the most physically vulnerable members of the population, remain disproportionately hard hit.
“By taking the unconscionable decision to bar humanitarian aid, the Sudanese government is once again causing civilian deaths and suffering on a massive scale”, said Gallopin.
Gallopin is also critical of the failure of the international community to act on arrest warrants issued for Sudanese president Omer al-Bashir and a number of other high-ranking government officials, who are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur.
He said civilians in Blue Nile were paying a high price as those accused of the worst human rights abuses continued to evade justice.
The Sudanese government has been fighting to wrest control of the region from the Southern aligned Southern aligned fighters from the SPLM/A-N, who fought alongside South Sudan in their struggle for independence, but were left north of the border after partition.
Sudan has repeatedly accused Juba of backing its former allies operating in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.
However, a separate report released in April by the Small Arms Survey as part of its Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) found that there was little evidence to support claims the South Sudanese government was supplying weapons to the SPLM-N, though some political and logistical support is evident.
Amnesty has called on the Sudanese government to end indiscriminate aerial bombings and deliberate ground attacks in civilian areas and to grant immediate access to humanitarian relief organisations.
OVERLOOKED
Gallopin said the horrific scale of events had been largely overlooked by the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the African Union (AU), as they focused on improving relations between Sudan and South Sudan
“The possibility of a long-term stalemate is extremely worrying. The international community must give this human rights crisis the attention it deserves”, he said.
Testimonies in the 72-page report were based on interviews with some 42 refugees and displaced people during a 10-day visit to rebel-controlled areas of Blue Nile state and refugee camps in Upper Nile state in South Sudan.
AI also interviewed numerous representatives of UN agencies and NGOs involved in the delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees in South Sudan, as well as Sudanese rights activists, community leaders, SPLM/A-N officials and academics.
(ST)