Sudan using "scorched earth tactics" in Blue Nile: Amnesty
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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.
JPEG - 34.1 kb
A boy who fled a war across the border in Sudan’s Blue Nile state
waits in a queue outside a clinic in Doro refugee camp, March 9, 2012.
(REUTERS/Hereward Holland)
The report - “We had no time to bury them: War crimes in Sudan’s Blue
Nile State” - documents indiscriminate bombings and ground attacks by
Sudanese military forces, which have cut a swathe of destruction,
leaving many dead and injured and forcing tens of thousands to flee,
with many now facing starvation, disease and exhaustion.
The findings are a result of an AI research mission in April to Blue
Nile state and refugee camps in South Sudan.
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-N (SPLA-M), 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 SPLA-M-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
SPLA-M-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.
“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”, Assit al-Bushra Idriss, a woman from Boqish
village in the Mayak area, told Amnesty.
AI has documented more deaths 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, are
disproportionately hard hit.
The Sudanese government continues to block humanitarian relief to
civilians in rebel-held areas.
“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-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-N/A officials and academics.
(ST)
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