Sudan's Nuba mountains face genocide, former UN Official says
The former head of the United Nations mission in Sudan called for international intervention to prevent “genocide” in the Nuba mountains region where the government is fighting insurgents.
Mukesh Kapila said he saw evidence during a recent visit to the area that the government is targeting civilians in a campaign reminiscent of atrocities that began in Darfur in 2004 when he headed the UN mission to Sudan. He called the African Union, the Arab League and the UN to pressure the government in Khartoum to halt the attacks.
“Darfur was the first genocide of the 21st century,” he told reporters today in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. “And the second genocide of the 21st century might be unfolding right now in the Nuba Mountains.”
The Nuba Mountains are in Southern Kordofan, an oil-rich state where fighting broke out in June between the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North. The conflict has spread to neighboring Blue Nile state and forced tens of thousands of people to flee into neighboring South Sudan, which gained independence in July.
Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman al-Obeid Murawih didn’t answer phone calls seeking comment.
Kapila accused Khartoum of withholding food aid while employing a “scorched-earth policy” to prevent residents from planting crops.
“I also saw the anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs that had been used in places where women and children go to fetch water and firewood,” he said.
Kapila said Khartoum is carrying out abuses similar to those in Darfur, which led the International Criminal Court to charge government officials, including president Umar al-Bashir, with responsibility for genocide and war crimes.
Bombing Raids
On Feb. 3, the White House condemned “the bombing by the Sudanese Armed Forces of civilian populations in Southern Kordofan.” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on Jan. 17 that Sudan’s government has “deliberately denied access” to international aid and UN workers in the two states.
The next day U.S. special envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman said about 500,000 people in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile may face “emergency conditions bordering on famine” by March.
Kapila said the civilian population’s needs “override” Khartoum’s position that outside humanitarian intervention would violate its sovereignty.
Al-Bashir’s government has “lost the authority to govern” by attacking its own people and deliberately creating famine conditions, he said.
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