Bombings continue in northern Bahr al-Ghazal

Relief officials working in southern Sudan on Wednesday confirmed the Sudanese government bombing of the villages of Malwal Kon, a significant relief centre, and Madhol, in Aweil East county, northern Bahr al-Ghazal on Monday. Antonov bombers had dropped six bombs on Malwal Kon, including one disconcertingly close to a relief centre, and five on Madhol, a few kilometres to the east, aid workers told IRIN. They also said that Antonovs had dropped another 10 bombs, a little way south of Malwal Kon, possibly on Dhiak, on Wednesday morning. There were no details available of casualties or damage. The nongovernmental organisation Christian Solidarity International (CSI), which has a history of mutual antipathy with the Sudanese government in Khartoum, reported on Tuesday that a government Antonov aircraft had killed two civilians and injured one when it bombed the villages of Malwal Kon and Rup Wot in Aweil East on Monday. The attack on Malwal Kon had narrowly missed a relief compound and the local Pentecostal church, it added. The NGO Tearfund on Wednesday said that one of six bombs dropped on Malwal Kon had missed one of its therapeutic feeding centres, though one it had closed in October when malnutrition rates showed signs of improving after the traditional 'hunger gap'. Malwal Kon, a significant and strategic village in this northern part of Bahr al-Ghazal, has a history of being bombed, according to aid sources who spoke to IRIN on Wednesday. In addition to being quite a high-profile centre for relief interventions, it was a place of refuge for civilians fleeing raids by the [government-aligned] Popular Defence Forces (PDF) closer to the Khartoum-Wau railway line when the government's resupply and reinforcement train was in the area, and an important link with the trading centre of Warawa to the north, they said. There was no indication at this point that the latest incidents were part of an effort to "soften up" the area in advance of a major, dry-season ground offensive by the government, as Aweil East Civil Commissioner Victor Akok had alleged, the sources added. CSI quoted Akok's comment in a press release issued on Tuesday, 27 November. There was some concern among relief agencies, however, that the concentrated bombing in Aweil might be an effort by the government to continue and consolidate military gains made in western Bahr al-Ghazal since mid-October - when it took control of Raga town from the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). CSI on Saturday criticised the government for bombing two other villages in Aweil East, Kuei Wiir and Pariang, last week, with the reported loss of at least three lives. Aerial bombings by government Antonov aircraft in Aweil East last week have been confirmed by other humanitarian sources. An end to military attacks on civilians (bombing, artillery attacks, helicopter gunship attacks and so on) was one of four "specific, action-oriented and verifiable" proposals that US Special Envoy for Peace John Danforth made to the warring parties in Sudan earlier this month. At a State Department briefing in Washington DC, USA, on Wednesday (28 November), Danforth said the question of monitoring the bombing - or cessation of bombing - of civilians would be complex. Monitoring and verification mechanisms for all four US proposals would be worked out when an American visited Sudan from next week to follow up on technical issues related to the four proposals, he said. "If you're creating an atmosphere where the world is going to be watching and there are going to be ways of receiving reports of bad actions, and teams going in to review whether they happened or not, it would seem to me that [monitoring] would not be unmanageable," Danforth added. On the bombing, Danforth said, the SPLA was not believed to have airplanes from which to drop bombs so that the proposal to cease such activities "would be aimed at whoever has the planes." However, the four proposals were not intended to be "weighted" against either the government or SPLA but merely to address a situation where fighting involving both had as its victims innocent civilians. "These four ideas are all geared to protecting non-combatants, so anyone who is hurting them is being asked to stop," he added. Danforth refused to draw any moral equivalence, or difference, between the government and SPLM/A but said the moral message behind his mission was very simple: "End the suffering, end the killing, end the bombing, end the slave-taking, end the fighting - and hopefully build towards some kind of resolution."