Thousands displaced by militias into Malakal

Up to 30,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced by fighting into the garrison town of Malakal in Upper Nile, Sudan, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the capital, Khartoum. The figure of 25,000 to 30,000 of such internally displaced persons (IDPs) was likely to be a "conservative figure", Nadia el Maaroufi, an official with OCHA told IRIN on Friday. A regional analyst told IRIN that up to 75,000 people were believed to have been displaced by conflict in the nearby Shilluk kingdom, which pits government-backed Nuer and Shilluk militias against the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The vast majority of the IDPs were women and children, who had arrived in the town with scant personal belongings, reporting looting, burning of villages, killing and rape, especially around Tonga, about 75 km west of Malakal, according to Nadia. The men are believed to have scattered into "the bush" to protect their cattle. An eyewitness reported that Nuer militiamen had shot men and women in Tonga on 22 March, and then laid landmines around a man’s body to prevent its burial. The Shilluk kingdom became destabilised after 25 October 2003, when the leader of a government-allied militia, Lam Akol, re-defected to the SPLM/A. Not all of Akol's forces, known as the SPLM/A-United, were happy with the move, with the result that an internal split and a struggle for control of the area ensued. Fighting between the SPLM/A-United and a number of Shilluk and Nuer militias took place, resulting in the burning of villages, including Nielwag and Popwojo near Tonga, and Alaki, the village of the Shilluk king. A steady flow of IDPs has been arriving in Malakal since January 2004, according to OCHA. At the end of March local authorities in the region reportedly advised people residing on the west bank of the Nile river, around Tonga, and between Malakal and Kaka, about 140 km to the north, to leave their homes because of fighting. A "massive influx" of IDPs had then arrived in Malakal, many from the west bank area, Nadia confirmed. They had reportedly fled areas such as Detang as their villages were being burned. At the same time, eyewitnesses reported seeing about 800 Nuer militia crossing the Nile in Malakal, moving towards the west bank area, armed with light weapons. A machine-gun boat was seen carrying wounded militia and soldiers on 2 April. By early April, about 6,000 of the IDPs were staying in four camps outside Malakal, known as Obel 1, 2 and 3 and Kanal, said Nadia. A further 900 were camped on the west bank of the Nile river, while the rest were in Malakal town, staying with friends and relatives. The IDPs on the west bank are now reportedly hiding 20 km inland from the Nile river, and are isolated from water, food, shelter and health care, according to OCHA. Shilluk leaders have reported that they are subjected to militia attacks whenever they try to approach the river, while local authorities are preventing them from entering Malakal town. UN officials had been denied permission to visit the IDPs on the west bank, Nadia told IRIN, adding that the humanitarian needs of neither the IDPs nor the host populations were being catered for. "The relatives the IDPs are staying with are barely able to feed themselves," she said. "The focus is so much on [the western region of] Darfur that the people in Malakal are being lost in the shadows," commented a regional analyst. Agencies had non-food items sitting in warehouses that should have been distributed to the IDPs weeks ago, he added. Sudanese regular forces reportedly withdrew from the Shilluk kingdom in early April. The situation had calmed since then, the regional analyst told IRIN, apart from fighting reported on 9 April around Popwojo. But the militia and government forces were now said to be moving back into the kingdom, especially around Tonga, he added.