NGO reports civilian suffering in Aweil offensive

Christian Solidarity International (CSI), an NGO long at odds with the Sudanese government, on Wednesday cited civil authorities in the Aweil region of northern Bahr al-Ghazal in claiming that government-allied armed forces had killed 93 civilians and enslaved 85 women and children in a new offensive between 23 and 26 October. Members of the regular army and the paramilitary Popular Defence Forces (PDF) raided 12 villages just north of the garrison town of Aweil, the NGO said. Over 4,000 civilians had been displaced and hundreds of livestock looted, it added. The government is trying to create greater military stability around Aweil to allow less troublesome oil exploitation in the nearby concession area of the Canadian firm Talisman, according to CSI. The government's military position in Bahr al-Ghazal was strengthened by the recapture of Raga town in western Bahr al-Ghazal in mid-October, and the arrival at the Aweil garrison of reinforcements accompanying the Khartoum-Wau military train, the NGO stated. Christian Solidarity International was an organisation discredited by the United Nations itself, when it removed its consultative status at the Economic and Social Council, Muhammad Dirdiery, Deputy Head of Mission at the Sudanese embassy in Kenya, told IRIN on Thursday. He said that CSI had repeatedly shown itself to be biased and the latest allegations were more or less in line with what the government had always heard from it. Right now, there was no fighting in that area, it was relatively quiet and CSI's allegations were "totally baseless," Dirdiery added. Independent humanitarian sources have confirmed military actions in northern Bahr al-Ghazal, and told IRIN of thousands of reinforcements - up to 5,000, according to one estimate - who have arrived on the military train to relieve rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) pressure on Aweil. Dirdiery said that Sudanese forces were involved in "ordinary troop movements" in the area, which sometimes involved some skirmishes, but that there were no battles or fighting to speak of and CSI's claims were unfounded. According to CSI, the government mujahidin offensive marks the first slave raids of the dry season (October to May) in northern Bahr al-Ghazal. Government troops and the PDF attacked the villages of Mariam, Amothic, Rumtiit, Makuac Deng, Ayom, Aweiluic, Wakabil, Ariakriak, Rol-Abounou, Akockou, Machar Lang, Riangbiar and Mayom, it said. The latest jihad (Muslim holy war) raids have been accompanied by an increase in "indiscriminate aerial bombardment and artillery shelling" by the government in the Aweil region, in an aim to "cleanse" it of Black Africans and non-Muslims, CSI quoted the Civil Commissioner of Aweil East County, Victor Akok, as saying. The NGO also expressed concern at the US administration having eased pressure on "the radical Islamist regime in Khartoum" in return for its limited political cooperation in the war against Al-Qaeda (Al-Qa'idah) and international terrorism.