Wüstenschiff

Jagdflugzeuge überfliegen fast täglich die Dörfer in den Nuba-Bergen – Omar al-Bashir will es so. Es gibt nichts mehr zu essen. Außer wilde Blätter.

Introduction

It has been hypothesised that the Nuba people in South Kordofan State, the Sudan, besides other population of what used to be referred to as ‘Closed Districts’ in 1922, have been subjected to both ‘historical and contemporary injustices’. The epoch of this ‘historic marginalisation and injustices’ has so long a range, covering both pre- and post-independence Sudan. The ‘contemporary injustices’, on the other hand, started with the ushering in of nationalist regimes; it is still continuing inescapably to this very day, and generating open expressions of dissent. Against this backdrop, various attempts were made by the Nuba activists to change the situation, but these efforts have gone unheeded due to the stubbornness of the authorities. It is worth noting that race has been a determining factor in politics and policies of Sudan, as elsewhere, when ethnicity plays a great role in political conflicts. In the Sudan, politics can be a highly sensitive or emotive issue; and the peculiar problem of it is that it gives people a warped image of themselves as being sorted by race. This is a compellingly starting point for the study of some of events accumulated – and defined by race - to force the Nuba to take to armed struggle after exhausting all peaceful means, including political campaigning by their own pressure groups.

The Land and the People

The Nuba tribes are scattered all over what is known today as the Nuba Mountains in Southern Kordofan, the Sudan. Barbour presented a detailed physical description of the Nuba Mountains ...

Nord-Sudans Luftwaffe bombardiert regelmäßig zivile Ziele in den Nuba-Bergen. Die Grenzregion zum Südsudan wird von südsudanesischen Rebellen kontrolliert. Hilfsorganisationen ziehen sich zurück.

Sudanese army and rebel groups in South Kordofan state and Darfur region confirmed clashes in the two regions but they delivered different accounts about the outcome of the fight [...] The military spokesperson said the army repulsed a SPLM-N attack on the village of Hagar Al-Dom 30 kilometers northeast Kallugi, South Kordofan on Thursday. He added that 45 rebels were killed during the fight and accused the assailant force of killing 21 civilians.

At least one woman was killed and another individual wounded when mortar shells hit Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan state eye witnesses told Sudan Tribune. According to reports received from Kadugli, four shells fell in different parts of the city: one in Kadugli market, the second nearby the headquarters of Popular Defence Forces, the third fell between buildings of the state radio and a school and the fourth landed near the branch of Bank of Sudan.

Six civilians all women and children were killed during a mortar attack by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) on Kadugli town, capital South Kordofan state. In unexpected move, the SPLM-N rebels who fight the Sudanese army in South Kordofan since more than a year, shelled sporadically the capital of the state on Monday, from the surrounding mountains. The shelling hit among others, the central market, a school, the radio station, and the premises of UNICEF in Kadugli, and a local police station.

Sudanese government forces clashed with rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) when the latter attempted to take over a village east of South Kordofan State on Sunday, both sides confirmed. South Kordofan governor Ahmad Haroun announced on Monday that the clashes occurred after SPLM-N forces attacked Um Dihalib village in the suburbs of the strategic town of Talodi which the insurgents attacked and attempted to wrestle control of it from the government a number of times. According to Haroun, government forces killed 12 SPLM-N fighters, wounded dozens and arrested one. He said that four civilians died in the fighting. Haroun also said that government forces seized from the rebels three rocket-propelled grenades and a number of ammunition.

South Kordofan rebels reported that Sudanese warplanes bombed several villages in the Nuba Mountains area on Tuesday, during the whole day. SPLM-N spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, said in a statement emailed to Sudan Tribune that four Mig and two Antonov bombarded the villages of Um Sardabah, Karkarrai, Tanguel and Al-Atmoor in the Nuba Mountains. He pointed out that the aerial bombing, which started at 08.00am and continued till 03.00pm (local time), injured a child, killed nine heads of cattle and destroyed the crops of local residents.

The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army North said on Friday that it repulsed an advance by government troops on a village in South Kordofan state, killing “70 enemy combatants” in a lengthy battle [...] In an e-mailed statement on Friday, SPLM-N spokesperson Arnu Loddi said that their forces managed to defeat and repulse an attempt by government forces to occupy the village of DalDako northeast of South Kordofan capital Kadugli. The statement said that the defeated force consisted of 1500 soldiers from regular and allied paramilitary forces and was supported by 3 tanks, and 15 vehicles laden with different sorts of heavy machine guns. According to the statement, the battle that lasted from 6 am to 7 pm local time on Thursday saw their forces killing “70 enemy combatants” while the rest of the government force ended up withdrawing to Kadugli. It also said 7 SPLM-N fighters were “martyred” and 17 sustained injuries.

Without recognising and considering cultural diversity within a nation, it will be a naivety to view the contemporary communal conflicts in the Sudan, especially the clash between Nuba African and Arabo-Islamic cultures, as simply the consequence of new patterns of social interaction and competition for resources generated by economic modernisation, underdevelopment and the institutional framework within which this competition occurs [...] Salient issues that arose from some of the subjects of this article resonate with the following questions: is there a unique Nuba culture? And if yes, what are their aspects? And how do these cultural features characterise the Nuba as a people to the point of cultural self-identification? How some of these cultural attributes are practised? And what are the changes that have occurred to some of them through the time factor, as a process of transformation, or human coercion?

Die Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV) hat der Regierung des Sudan am Dienstag vorgeworfen, in den umkämpften Nuba-Bergen (Süd-Kordofan) schwere Kriegsverbrechen zu begehen. Die sudanesische Luftwaffe werfe Fassbomben über zivilen Zielen ab, um die Bevölkerung einzuschüchtern und in die Flucht zu treiben, kritisierte die Menschenrechtsorganisation. Der GfbV-Afrikareferent Ulrich Delius berichtete: "Mindestens 587 Bomben wurden in den vergangenen 30 Tagen aus umgebauten ehemaligen Antonov-Transportmaschinen über bewohnten Dörfern in den Nuba-Bergen abgeworfen. Die meisten dieser Sprengsätze waren völkerrechtlich geächtete Fassbomben. Durch Angriffe der Luftwaffe, der Armee und verbündeter Milizen wurden nach Angaben der Nichtregierungsorganisation Nuba Mountains Observatory for Human Rights 541 Zivilisten seit Anfang März 2016 getötet. Mindestens 20.000 Menschen mussten vor den Luftangriffen fliehen."