More peace, more bombs in Sudan
Sudanese women carry water in the town of Kadugli in the Sudanese oil-producing northern state of South Kordofan on May 3, 2011. The town has been hit by violence by forces loyal to Sudan President Omar al-Bashir’s Khartoum regime.
Just as another peace deal was agreed to end the fighting along the fault line where Sudan is due to separate early next month, there were further reports of bombings and killings from the United Nations and humanitarian groups.
On Monday the U.N. Security Council agreed to the deployment of 4,200 Ethiopian peacekeepers to the disputed region of Abyei.
On Tuesday former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki said a deal had been done that would see the ethnic Nuba fighers of the SPLM North (the north Sudan-based branch of the southern liberation movement) either demobilized or integrated into Khartoum’s army.
The arrangement, it is hoped, might pave the way to ending the fighting in South Kordofan that has raged since early June leading to accusations that President Omar al-Bashir and his Khartoum regime are carrying out ethnic cleansing.
On Thursday another agreement was announced, this one grander in scale and even less operable in practice. North and South Sudan will establish a 12-mile-wide demilitarized buffer zone along the 1,300 mile border.
The buffer zone is to be monitored by U.N. peacekeepers and international observers. A key problem is that no one actually knows where the border is. It has not yet been demarcated and is vigorously contested in some parts of the oil-rich parts.
And then as if to further dampen the excitement that such a slew of peace deals might elicit, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) issued a situation report saying the fighting and aerial bombing was ongoing and had likely killed civilians.
“Fighting has continued in recent days in parts of South Kordofan State. Reports of aerial attacks causing civilian casualties and severe injuries in the Kauda area on 27 June have not yet been verified but are supported by photographic and eyewitness reports,” said UNOCHA.
“Aerial bombing was also reported in Talodi on 25 June, Kadugli town on 27 June and Umm Durein on 28 June. Sporadic gunfire was reported east of Talodi on 28 June.”
None of this can be verified because the northern army has blocked access to parts of South Kordofan where the fighting has been going on. UNOCHA said that the UN has now been allowed into “limited areas of Kadugli town” where the worst of the violence is believed to have occurred.
“Access to all other areas continues to be denied,” UNOCHA said.
Proof that the attacks are taking place was provided by Hollywood actor George Clooney’s Satellite Sentinel project which released a series of satellite images that back up claims of heavy fighting and aerial bombardment in South Kordofan.