Civilian suffering continues as war rages

The Sudanese army and Popular Defence Forces (PDF) militias have claimed recent military victories in Bahr al-Ghazal State, southern Sudan, and in Blue Nile State, in the east of the country, during recent engagements.

The Sudanese army reported that it had destroyed rebel camps in Sabun, on the Raga-Aweil road, and Miri, both in western Bahr al-Ghazal, according to the Republic of Sudan Radio in Omdurman, outside the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

The army had also claimed military victories in Magok and Maryam, near Aweil in Bahr al-Ghazal, and to have taken control of Makway town, between Wau and Gogrial, the report added.

The army spokesman, Gen Muhammad al-Bashir Sulayman, had claimed that the Sudanese army and militia forces had inflicted "huge losses" on the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), in terms of casualties, equipment and fighting supply materials, the Associated Press agency (AP) reported on Sunday.

Sulayman had claimed that the gains had reinforced government control over oil areas, including Adar-Yill, the second-largest oil drilling site in Sudan, and improved supply lines, the report added.

An SPLM/A spokesman, Samson Kwaje, rejected the government claims, saying that a government "campaign to capture Gogrial", north of Wau, on the Bahr al-Ghazal river, had failed.

The army also claimed, in a statement, to have ousted rebel forces from "limited locations" they had controlled in Upper Nile, thereby facilitating access to oil-extraction locations, according to Sudanese media.

AFP news agency quoted another SPLM/A spokesman, George Garang, as saying that the government reports were mere propaganda, with the government "trying to raise the morale of their forces, who have been badly beaten" in Blue Nile and western Upper Nile.

Garang said the SPLM/A controlled all areas south of Bentiu, near the location of the oilfields in western Upper Nile, and that fighters in the field had said they intended to advance on the government garrison town of Wau.

Despite the contradictory accounts of the fighting, they do confirm consistent reports of heavy military engagement in both western Bahr al-Ghazal and Upper Nile. Aid agency staff have reported heavy clashes, civilian displacement and increased activity in both areas by government helicopter gunships.

Recent months have seen an upsurge in fighting in Unity State/western Upper Nile between Sudanese government and aligned militia forces, on the one hand, and the SPLM/A, on the other, essentially over control of the area's rich oil resources, according to humanitarian agencies.

The United Nations Children's Fund has, in a humanitarian update to end May, just released, expressed deep concern about the fate of women and children caught up in fighting, which continues to displace people from their homes in western Upper Nile.

Humanitarian actors working in Sudan estimate that between 150,000 and 300,000 people were displaced in western Upper Nile alone between January and April this year.

At the start of April, some 40 locations in southern Sudan were listed by the government of Sudan as being denied both flight access and general humanitarian access "for security reasons", which effectively cut off humanitarian supply lines into many parts of western Upper Nile, Eastern Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal, according to relief officials.

On 16 May, the Khartoum administration further increased restrictions on humanitarian access by announcing a flight ban for the entire area of Unity State (encompassing western Upper Nile).

Freedom of access to vulnerable populations - an international humanitarian principle - is guaranteed under a beneficiary protocol of Operation Lifeline Sudan, which established principles for the protection and provision of aid to war-affected populations in Sudan.

Despite attempts by government forces to increase their control over the oil-rich areas, often using new military technology paid for with oil revenues, rebel forces had continued to restrict government oil extraction to the area north of Bentiu town, John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group told IRIN last week.

The SPLM/A had consolidated its control over western Upper Nile south of Bentiu, where the bulk of Sudan's oil resources were located, having gained significant military support following a merger with the formerly government-aligned Sudan People's Defence Forces of the Nuer leader, Riek Machar, Prendergast said.

Villages in western Upper Nile under government control, as well as those held by the rebels, have been placed on the government's "denied locations" list, according to Prendergast.

Despite repeated calls for unrestricted access, and agreements by the warring parties to assure this, military operations, insecurity, flight bans and the government's alleged depopulation of oil-rich areas to secure them for production have displaced and/or precluded access to hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Khartoum denies it is targeting civilian populations in oil areas, and has blamed the SPLM/A for escalating military operations and causing the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Unity/western Upper Nile.

In a separate development in eastern Sudan, the Sudanese armed forces have been celebrating their recapture from rebel forces last week of Qaysan town in Blue Nile State, 600 km southeast of Khartoum. They also claimed to have forced rebel troops from two locations near Qaysan, AP reported.

The SPLM/A claims to have made a "tactical withdrawal from Qaysan, near Sudan's eastern border with Ethiopia.