Christians Killed, Church Buildings Destroyed In Sudan’s Bombing Of Civilians
Four children, elderly woman among 10 dead in Nuba Mountains.
JUBA, South Sudan, July 7, 2014 (Morning Star News) – Sudan’s bombing of civilian targets in the country’s Nuba Mountains in the past two months has killed at least 10 Christians, sources told Morning Star News.
Four children and an elderly woman were among the victims of bombings in Sudan’s South Kordofan state as part of the regime’s plan to rid the country of Christians, mostly black ethnic Nuba, in an effort to render it solely Arabic and Islamic, Sudanese Christians say.
Church leaders and aid workers told Morning Star News that Sudan’s bombings of civilian areas in its war with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) killed 14-year-old Abdo al Nour and Abdel Rahman Hassan, 15, in the village of Um Serdiba on June 13. In the same area on May 20, according to the sources who requested anonymity, a Sudanese Air Force bombing killed 30-year-old Kimmia Calals of the Sudanese Church of Christ, leaving her nursing child motherless.
On June 17 in Tabalo village, a Sudanese bomb from a Russian-made Antonov plane killed Yasin Salah, 16, and another minor, Ado al Sawaq, the sources said. On June 11 in the same village in Um Dorain County, 80-year-old Amira Ballula was killed when a plane dropped a bomb on her house in the village of Tabalo, they said.
The bombers targeted two church buildings belonging to the Sudanese Church of Christ on June 18 in Um Dorain. The aerial bombardment also destroyed eight boreholes that provided water, a source said.
He said the bombers do not differentiate between civilians and military installations.
“They just bomb randomly on civilians, who are innocents,” he said.
Christians in Um Serdiba, El Nugura, Tabalo, Alabu, and Tangal scattered to bushes and caves as the aerial bombardment continued from morning to evening.
“Dozens of people have died [since fighting broke out in June 2011] as a result of the attacks,” said an area source, estimating that Christians accounted for about 40 percent of the civilian fatalities.
In Um Serdiba, the Sudanese Air Force bombed another church of the Sudanese Church of Christ, sending church members running into mountain caves. Over three weeks, the Sudan Air Force destroyed three church buildings.
The bombing of civilian targets in South Kordofan state in May targeted the region’s only hospital and damaged an orphanage school and a relief agency, sources said. In Um Serdiba on May 18, Sife El Deen Ibrahim, 40, was killed immediately when a bomb from an Antonov jet hit the Christian’s house, an area church member requesting anonymity told Morning Star News.
Ibrahim left a widow and four children, ages 12, 15, 17 and 20, who were dependent on him for their livelihood, she said.
In Kauda, Antonov planes dropped bombs on the Nuba Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Organization (NRRDO), the only humanitarian organization in South Kordofan, in late May, sources said. On May 29, bombing destroyed an orphanage school in Kauda, they said.
Since South Sudan split from Sudan in a 2011 referendum, Nuba people in Sudan’s South Kordofan state believe the government’s goal of quashing rebels is also meant to rid the area of non-Arabs and Christianity. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said post-secession Sudan will adhere more exclusively to Islam and Arabic culture.
Thousands of civilians have taken refuge in Nuba Mountain caves in South Kordofan, which borders South Sudan. The Nuba people have longstanding complaints against Khartoum – including neglect, oppression and forced conversions to Islam in a 1990s jihad – but as Sudanese citizens on the northern side of the border, they were never given the option of secession in the 2005 peace pact between northern and southern Sudan.
The rebels in the Nuba Mountains were formerly involved with the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) forces fighting Khartoum before the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Fighting between Sudan and South Sudan broke out in June 2011, when Khartoum forcefully attempted to disarm the SPLA-N in South Kordofan by force rather than awaiting a process of disarmament as called for in the CPA. When the CPA was signed in 2005, the people of South Kordofan were to vote on whether to join the north or the south, but the state governor suspended the process.
Photo: Civilian bombings have driven thousands into caves in Nuba Mountains. (Diocese of El Obeid)
Source: www.MorningStarNews.org
