SPLA rings alarm on "Bahr al-Ghazal crisis"

A humanitarian crisis of major magnitude is unfolding in Western Bahr al-Ghazal State, southern Sudan, as intensified government bombing and ground attacks by government-armed murahilin tribal militia have resulted in the entire population of Raga County being displaced, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) claimed on Thursday. The government of Sudan has unleashed some 2,000 murahilin warriors (usually comprising Arab Baqqarah and Zaghawah tribesmen) on horseback to ravage the length of Raga County, while also intensifying its bombing of fleeing civilians, according to a statement from rebel spokesman Samson Kwaje. The government recaptured Raga in mid-October following its seizure by the SPLA in the course of a major offensive in May/June. The SPLM/A on Thursday called for international condemnation of the government's (alleged) attacks, for a no-fly zone for government aircraft to be imposed "all over the New Sudan", and for an urgent response from relief agencies to a "humanitarian crisis of great magnitude" emerging in Western Bahr al-Ghazal. Displaced people were being bombed as they moved along the Raga-Wau and Raga-Tombura roads in search of refuge, Kwaje said. "The situation is extremely desperate, particularly for the elderly, women and children... They have no food along the route towards the south," he said. Reports reaching the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (the humanitarian branch of the SPLM/A) in Rumbek indicated that a large number of civilians were on the move with nothing to eat and no place for temporary refuge as the government kept bombing them from Antonov aircraft, he added. The SPLA's claims were merely an indication of the rebels' bitterness at having been being dislodged from Raga town by government forces, and losing face with a population which had shunned them because of atrocities committed in the short time they had controlled Raga, Muhammad Dirdiery, deputy head of mission at the Sudanese embassy in Kenya, told IRIN on Thursday. There have been reports from inside Sudan of 15,000 people on the move out of Raga, many moving from Daym Zubayr towards Tombura in the direction of Western Equatoria, and being actively pursued by People's Defence Forces (PDF) government militia, humanitarian sources told IRIN. It was difficult to confirm this information, the numbers of displaced, or the general run of events, because insecurity still prevailed in Western Bahr al-Ghazal, they added. The government was very much aware of where the SPLA had military units in Western Bahr al-Ghazal, especially around Raga town, but was "deliberately concentrating its genocidal aerial bombardment campaign against the civil population far away from SPLA positions that are around besieged government held garrisons", according to Kwaje. There had been nothing like bombing, and no need for bombing in Western Bahr al-Ghazal, he said, because the rebel army had dispersed after it lost Raga, and was not even concentrating in villages, because it had no remaining support in them, Dirdiery stated. The most vulnerable in the population particularly fall prey to the murahilin militia, according to Kwaje. The weak were being killed as they could not move, the murahilin had stolen cattle, plundered foodstuffs and burned crops, and were also reported to have raped women and underage girls, he said on Thursday. Murahilin militiamen on horseback were also reported to have abducted thousands of children and women, who would later be sold as domestic slaves to rich Arab farmers in northern Sudan, or to customers in the Middle East, he added. Dierdiery, however, countered that there could not have been murahilin involvement in clashes so far south, and just because some regular military or PDF troops may have been on horseback was no reason to assume they were murahilin. Kwaje said it was clear that the government of Sudan was "waging a war of displacement on the civil population in Western Bahr al-Ghazal, along the same pattern it has been using in other areas - particularly in the regions of the oilfields". The SPLM/A called on the international community "to roundly condemn the government of Sudan" for these (alleged) actions in Raga County, and to restrain it from "these criminal acts". It also called on the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone on government of Sudan aircraft "not only in Western Bahr al-Ghazal but all over the New Sudan so as to protect the civil population". The rebels' call for a no-fly zone was nothing new, and happened any time the SPLA was "feeling the pinch on military movements", according to Dirdiery. "This indicates that they are suffering low morale; they feel the people are not rallying with them, and they feel deserted and neglected by the people," he said. The international community was very welcome to visit Sudan and, in fact, was reconsidering its agenda regarding the SPLA, which had proven itself to be the real obstacle to the peace process - just as it had rejected government calls for a comprehensive humanitarian cease-fire in the south, Dirdiery added. In his statement on Thursday, Kwaje also asked for an urgent and immediate response from relief agencies to the humanitarian crisis in Western Bahr al-Ghazal so that food, medicine and shelter could be delivered to desperate members of the community. With the Daym Zubayr-Tombura road out of commission, and no airstrip available in the area, it was difficult for relief agencies to confirm what was happening on the ground, let alone deliver humanitarian assistance at this time, a UN relief worker told IRIN on Wednesday. Operation Lifeline Sudan, the UN-led humanitarian coordination mechanism for southern Sudan, would nonetheless be looking into delivering "an immediate response" to the needs of any people displaced in Western Bahr al-Ghazal, the relief worker added.