Reading the news headlines these days, it is possible to think that the war in Sudan has ended. With the focus shifting to Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza, little mention is made of the fighting in Sudan's Nuba Mountains or southern Blue Nile. But a delegation of Sudanese activists visiting Cairo last week told Arab League officials that the humanitarian conditions in these two areas are particularly dire. Amin Makki Madani, a member of the Arab Civil Society Federation, said that the Sudanese delegation reviewed with Arab League officials the conditions in conflict zones in Sudan, especially in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. Recent battles triggered by hotly disputed elections in South Kordofan added to the suffering of the local population. Madani said that July had been the worst month in terms of humanitarian conditions in the war-affected regions. Khaled Hassan, a human rights activist from Blue Nile, told the Weekly that the actions of the Khartoum government have led to the displacement of civilians in Nuba and Blue Nile. The government, he added, is attacking the civilian population in order to deny refuge to its opponents. “Khartoum has benefited from the lack of world media interest in what is happening in Sudan's war zones. This is the exact opposite of what happened in the early years of the civil war in Darfur,” Hassan remarked. It was international indignation over the bloodshed in Darfur that brought the issue to the attention of the International Criminal Court, and led to the latter's issuing an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. “All of Sudan is now off the charts of the world's attention. People are only interested in Syria, Gaza and Iraq,” Hassan said. Sudanese activists are hoping to attract the media's attention to the plight of their compatriots, he added. According to a recent UN humanitarian report, Sudan is one of the countries most affected by civil war in the world. Bishari Qamar, director of the Human Rights and Development Organisation (HUDO) in the Blue Nile, spoke of acute food shortages in the area, adding that the Sudanese government uses warplanes to bomb villages in the area. The UN report indicated that 800,000 of the inhabitants of the southern Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains are in need of urgent humanitarian aid. Nearly 6.7 million Sudanese currently receive some form of aid. But officials say that the aid is falling short of what is needed. Of an estimated US$1 billion of required assistance, only 47 per cent has been raised. According to the report, about 385,000 refugees have left their villages because of the violence in Darfur. Of those, nearly 260,000 remain homeless. According to Human Rights Watch, an international NGO, the Sudanese army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), formerly the Janjaweed, attacked about 35 villages in South Darfur between 19 February and 23 April this year. Nagwa Kanada, an activist monitoring the situation in the Nuba Mountains, said that the Khartoum government has banned humanitarian organisations from operating in conflict areas, accusing them of pursuing foreign agendas. According to Kanada, the government is not even allowing children to receive polio vaccinations except through the Sudanese Red Crescent (SRC), which does not enjoy the trust of the local population. Locals are particularly suspicious of the SRC because it has allegedly distributed medicines that are past their expiration date and refused to vaccinate children. Sudan is fourth on the list of countries considered most dangerous for relief workers, preceded only by Syria, Afghanistan, and South Sudan. Ali Al-Zaatari, the UN representative in Sudan, said that a total of 22 UN workers were abducted in Sudan in 2014. Qamar referred to the fighting in Sudan as the “forgotten war,” saying that media coverage of the conflict is now minimal. “The scant media coverage is encouraging the regime to commit crimes and displace thousands,” he said. Qamar also said that the Sudanese government has used its air force to bomb worshippers during Eid prayers. In response, Walid Sayyed, from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), said that Sudan has had to take tough measures to protect itself against “disintegration. He blamed much of the fighting on “meddling” by unnamed foreign interests.
