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Humanitarian and Advocacy Information |
Archives
July 27, 2011 |
July 20, 2011 |
Catholic Relief Services 800-736-3467
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) 888-392-0392
Mercy Corps 888-256-1900
UNICEF United States Fund 800-FOR-KIDS (800-367-5437)
Dadaab refugee camp was overflowing when i visited there in 2007 and took these pictures. A Somali woman is holding the card a refugee receives when he or she is registered. It becomes their most important possession as it entitles them to receive food and basic shelter (a tent). Dadaab was set up for 90,0oo people. Now there are at least 400,000 with 1500 arriving, on foot, each day. Many do not survive the journey
July 19, 2011 |
"The Government of Sudan has pursued a policy of genocide inDarfur. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children have been killed in Darfur, and the killing continues to this very day....Washington must respond to the ongoing genocide and the ongoing failure to implement the CPA with consistency and strong consequences."
July 17, 2011 |
July 14, 2011 |
The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has revealed visual evidence of mass graves in South Kordofan, which corroborates new eyewitness reports of systematic killings and mass burials in this conflict-torn region of Sudan. The evidence found by SSP is consistent with allegations that the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and northern militias have engaged in a campaign of killing civilians.
SSP's new evidence corroborates four, independent eyewitness accounts that SAF, northern militias and other forces aligned with the Government of Sudan (GoS) are present inKadugli and are alleged to be methodically searching houses for civilians. The four eyewitnesses claim that the SAF and GoS-aligned forces are systematically killing those suspected of supporting the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and others.
"This evidence demonstrates the urgent need for a full-scale international investigation into the violence in South Kordofan, and underlines the imperative to protect civilian populations from their own government in Khartoum," said Enough Project Co-founder John Prendergast.
July 13, 2011 |
by their Khartoum based government. They say "jets come early in the
morning, bomb Kauda airstrip, then bomb the nearby mountains. They are
followed later by the Antonovs, which loiter and drop more bombs."
People flee into the mountains early each morning and return to their villages late in the evening, for fear of the
bombing. Children cannot go to school and people cannot plant crops. Recently Antonovs have also been heard at night, causing new trauma. The plea from Nuba people is for the international community to stop the aerial bombing- a no-fly zone is
the dream of the people on the ground.
July 10, 2011 |
July 9, 2011 |
Dignitaries have gathered in Juba, Capital of the Republic of South Sudan to celebrate its July 9 separation from the north. Khartoum's forces are not celebrating but they are busy. These photos and words come from courageous friends in the Nuba Mountains:
"The Nuba people urgently request access for humanitarian aid and no fly zone for all except humanitarian flights.Some half million people are now displaced on the top of mountains and in the caves among granite rocks. They have nowhere else to go. Many will die together with their innocent children. Without you, who know what is happening, nothing will be done. "
Call 1800-GENOCIDE to make sure the pleas of the Nuba people are carried from the caves where they are hiding to the White House
July 8, 2011 |
July 6, 2011 |
The Daily Star (Lebanon)- Excerpts. Link to complete piece below
The United Nations, already examining the performance of its
peacekeeping troops in Abyei in May, must widen its investigations to
their performance in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan in
June. In Abyei, Zambian peacekeepers stand accused of staying in their
barracks during fighting between government forces and the Sudan
People's Liberation Army (SPLA). In South Kordofan, Egyptian troops
are accused of actively conspiring with government forces against the
Nuba SPLA - for the last several years the government's partner in
peace, but denounced by Khartoum as a "rebel group" ever since
fighting erupted a month ago.
I had decided, on balance, not to write this piece. I felt it was not
the moment to focus on the peacekeepers, outgunned in the new fighting
and under orders from Khartoum to leave South Kordofan by July 9. More
important, for the moment, surely, are the disproportionate attacks on
Nuba civilians - especially aerial attacks.
What changed my mind? An image. Not of women and children torn apart
by 500-pound bombs. Of peacekeepers - taking photographs of protesters
in Kauda, a Nuba town attacked by Antonovs and MIG-29s eight times in
June. There they are, with their digital cameras, snapping away as
Nuba women rail against their "inaction" and "collaboration and connivance" with Khartoum.
It wasn't, admittedly, as bad as Tawila in North Darfur in May 2008,
when U.N. troops stood in little huddles, comparing photographs, as
Janjaweed ran amok under their noses. But two days before U.N. troops
treated the Kauda protest as something anecdotal, another snap for a
triumphal album, a single government bomb killed and wounded dozens of
civilians in Kurchi village. Photos taken by the Nuba are not family
viewing - two little girls spooned in death, with a red plastic jug
suggesting they were on their way to, or perhaps from, Kurchi's water
point when it was hit; a third, her abdomen a crimson flower; a
fourth, cradled bloodily in a young man's arms.
No U.N. troops took photos in Kurchi. At the time of writing they had
not been to the village.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission UNMIS has been a part of the problem in
South Kordofan, where many Nuba, although northern Sudanese, joined
south Sudan's war for a democratic "New Sudan". Established in March
2005, after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the 22-year civil
war, the mission was headed until 2010 by a man who colleagues say was
given to calling the Nuba "monkeys". On his watch, the lack of initiative of UNMIS and perceived complicity with Khartoum was a cause of deep frustration, and anger, to its most committed staff. UNMIS was also spectacularly uninformed about the reality of South Kordofan.
How little UNMIS knew. How little it cared to know! And how it has
come to haunt the mission now that its own men are, in its own words,
facing increasing "intimidation and obstruction" in South Sudan.
As a neighbor of Sudan, Egypt was expected put its bilateral relations
ahead of its peacekeeping duties. However, the extent of the
Egyptians' bias has shocked even senior staff from UNMIS.
Says one former staffer: "All political interpretations of the
situation came straight from the Khartoum regime and were disseminated
by the Egyptian army as UNMIS position both to the local parties and
the population at large. The racism that the Khartoum regime displayed
openly toward the opposition SPLM the Egyptians repeated consistently
and without variation."
The many charges leveled against UNMIS may not all be true, but they
form part of a pattern of bias and neglect that requires serious
investigation and complete transparency. A starting point could be the
question asked by the Nuba commander, Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, in a letter
to his Egyptian counterpart three days before war began.
"We have noticed", he wrote, "that the forces of the Central Reserve
Police have chosen as their camp an area adjacent to the headquarters
of your forces. The type of weapons and vehicles used by these forces
indicate they are combat troops. Our question is: What is the relation
between your forces and these?"
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has identified through analysis of DigitalGlobe satellite imagery captured on 4 July 2011 an apparent Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) convoy travelling through Kadugli town consistent with an at least regiment-sized unit, which is equal to approximately 1000 troops. The convoy is at least 2km in length, and could be potentially longer. There are at least 80 vehicles visible in the apparent convoy, including 49 light vehicles, cargo trucks, a vehicle consistent with a fuel or water tanker, heavy transports and towed artillery. The convoy is of significant size and appears to be heading to the north, though its origin, destination and total length remains unknown.
Additionally, a heavy transport plane consistent with an Iluyshin 76 (Il-76) is visible on 4 July at the Kadugli airstrip with a mass of people and/or material gathered near the plane. Two helicopters consistent with Hind Mi-24 helicopter gunships and a plane consistent with an Antonov 24/26 are visible as well. To the west of Kadugli, a known SAF installation has apparently been recently fortified and multiple occupied and unoccupied artillery firing positions are visible.
July 5, 2011 |
The Daily Star(Lebanon)
The United Nations, already examining the performance of its
peacekeeping troops in Abyei in May, must widen its investigations to
their performance in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan in
June. In Abyei, Zambian peacekeepers stand accused of staying in their
barracks during fighting between government forces and the Sudan
People's Liberation Army (SPLA). In South Kordofan, Egyptian troops
are accused of actively conspiring with government forces against the
Nuba SPLA - for the last several years the government's partner in
peace, but denounced by Khartoum as a "rebel group" ever since
fighting erupted a month ago.
I had decided, on balance, not to write this piece. I felt it was not
the moment to focus on the peacekeepers, outgunned in the new fighting
and under orders from Khartoum to leave South Kordofan by July 9. More
important, for the moment, surely, are the disproportionate attacks on
Nuba civilians - especially aerial attacks.
What changed my mind? An image. Not of women and children torn apart
by 500-pound bombs. Of peacekeepers - taking photographs of protesters
in Kauda, a Nuba town attacked by Antonovs and MIG-29s eight times in
June. There they are, with their digital cameras, snapping away as
Nuba women rail against their "inaction" and "collaboration and connivance" with Khartoum.
It wasn't, admittedly, as bad as Tawila in North Darfur in May 2008,
when U.N. troops stood in little huddles, comparing photographs, as
Janjaweed ran amok under their noses. But two days before U.N. troops
treated the Kauda protest as something anecdotal, another snap for a
triumphal album, a single government bomb killed and wounded dozens of
civilians in Kurchi village. Photos taken by the Nuba are not family
viewing - two little girls spooned in death, with a red plastic jug
suggesting they were on their way to, or perhaps from, Kurchi's water
point when it was hit; a third, her abdomen a crimson flower; a
fourth, cradled bloodily in a young man's arms.
No U.N. troops took photos in Kurchi. At the time of writing they had
not been to the village.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission UNMIS has been a part of the problem in
South Kordofan, where many Nuba, although northern Sudanese, joined
south Sudan's war for a democratic "New Sudan". Established in March
2005, after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the 22-year civil
war, the mission was headed until 2010 by a man who colleagues say was
given to calling the Nuba "monkeys". On his watch, the lack of initiative of UNMIS and perceived complicity with Khartoum was a cause of deep frustration, and anger, to its most committed staff. UNMIS was also spectacularly uninformed about the reality of South Kordofan.
How little UNMIS knew. How little it cared to know! And how it has
come to haunt the mission now that its own men are, in its own words,
facing increasing "intimidation and obstruction" in South Sudan.
As a neighbor of Sudan, Egypt was expected put its bilateral relations
ahead of its peacekeeping duties. However, the extent of the
Egyptians' bias has shocked even senior staff from UNMIS.
Says one former staffer: "All political interpretations of the
situation came straight from the Khartoum regime and were disseminated
by the Egyptian army as UNMIS position both to the local parties and
the population at large. The racism that the Khartoum regime displayed
openly toward the opposition SPLM the Egyptians repeated consistently
and without variation."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2011/Jul-05/Probe-UN-neglect-in-South-Kordofan.ashx#axzz1RDUg9yXV
July 4, 2011 |
From the marketplace you can see the barracks of UNMIS- the UN peacekeepers. In 2008, after watching the burning of Abyei from the barracks, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson said, "We pay a billion dollars a year for Unmis and they didn't leave their garrison. . . . U.N. peacekeepers were as close as 25 feet away. Sudanese homes were burned to the ground-despite the fact that UNMIS has a mission to intervene to protect innocent people."
July 3, 2011 |
July 2, 2011 |
This week marks a milestone of misery for millions of Sudanese
citizens. It is the anniversary of the military coup that brought
Field Marshall Omar Bashir to power in Sudan in 1989. Since then
Bashir has earned international notoriety for his sustained campaign
to cleanse his nation of people who do not agree with him. This
includes seven years of genocide against the citizens in Darfur, for
which he was been indicted by the International Criminal Court.
In April Bashir faced uproar about the scale of public floggings of
women (43,000 in Khartoum state alone in 2008) for "public indecency",
which in Sudan means daring to leave their homes to go to school or
college. He confessed he was bemused by the fuss, saying that Islam
can be defined as, "To cut and to stone and to kill." The Sudanese
leader has also stated that rape does not exist in Islam.
While some might survey his pitifully undeveloped economy and the
absence of schools, hospitals and infrastructure as a sign of failure,
the Sudanese president has had other priorities. He wanted to purge
his country of ethnically black African people, Christians and those
who do not submit to his interpretation of political Islam. As he said
recently, when he rewrites the constitution there will be nothing in
it about ethnicity or diversity.
He has achieved many of his aims. The US State Department estimates
two million have died in southern Sudan while 300,000 are dead in
Darfur thanks to bombing and attacks by the Sudanese armed forces and
their militia proxies, grabbing the land and resources of the black
Africans whom they are ethnically cleansing. The violence continues to
this day, with hundreds of thousands uprooted in May and June as
Bashir's forces unhesitatingly crush any signs of dissent.
Last month reliable church groups reported the systematic rounding up
and execution of anyone who is "too black" in South Kordofan state.
Military trucks filled with young men, hands tied behind their backs,
were seen heading for mass graves on the edge of the capital, Kadugli.
In the Nuba mountains, survivors speak of Sudanese helicopter gunships
hunting the ethnically black African people like animals.
It was a triumph of US diplomacy that Washington, working with its
British and Norwegian partners, forced Bashir to allow a vote last
January to allow the mainly black African people in the long-suffering
south to form their own country, which will become independent on July
9th.
It is therefore disappointing that the US offers only words as
Bashir's killing machine increasingly targets both Darfur and the
black Africans who have the misfortune to live north of the new
border.
cots. Thousands of others have been huddling in caves and stony
riverbeds, fleeing the fighter jets and bombers prowling the skies.
Villages are empty, fields unplowed. At the faintest buzz of a plane,
people scatter into the bush, in a panic.
"Just lie flat, or you could get killed" warned Nagwa Musa Konda, the
director of a local aid organization, as a plane growled closer.
July 1, 2011 |