Children of Nuba suffering every day – Part 2

This follows on from Part 1 of the personal testimony.

Anonymous Author (Kadugli, Sudan). Views expressed are the author’s own

On our way to the Kauda area

We moved to the East, directly passing through Murta-sharik. We found many displaced people there, many of them were crying. We met with the village community leader. We asked him what had happened and why those people were crying. He said that 30 minutes earlier the Arab militia had passed looking for someone who was from their village and was perceived to have supported the SPLM/A. They wanted to kill him.

As they went looking for him they found five girls. They raped them. Their ages were from 15 to 20 years old. They kidnapped two other girls and took them to Kadugli.

We met the families of the victims and we tried to provide them with some counselling. We took photos and I advised them not to put themselves in further danger by following the militia, but rather to report this case to UNMIS and let them follow up this case. When finished the discussion the village chief provided food to us. Then many families decided to accompany us because they were not feeling secure and our number increased to 37 including women and children. We passed through five further villages. We reached Umsrdiba on the second day. When we arrived there we found the place was full of displaced people who had arrived before us. They had come from different areas.

The following day we met with Umdurain Commissioner Marcko Lotelo. We told him about the situation of the group we have arrived with and asked him to assist them in transportation to Kauda. We spent one more day there and then the Commissioner sent one vehicle to carry only the women and children (in two trips) As a result of lack of fuel the remaining 15 men had to move to Kauda on foot and only arrived the following day.

When we reached Kauda we found the place empty. The people had left their houses because they had been under heavy air bombardment. This had resulted in five deaths including a woman who was 8 months pregnant. One other child and six persons were seriously wounded.

Kauda continue to be insecure because of air strikes. As a result the civilian population decided to spend the day time in the mountains and to come back down home at night. They were hiding in the mountain caves, running for their lives.

Through these experiences I have seen many Nuba children suffering terribly ever day. Many were forced tp walk long distances up to 130 Km and more. Many were separated from their families, many were hungry. Children has been abused, raped, recruited, and exploited. Many children are severely traumatized as a result of these experiences.

Children in the Nuba Mountains are facing an extremely difficult life with no access to food and clean water, no home and no shelter, no medicine, no nothing. The Government does not even care about them. As is demonstrated by the latest Kurchi heavy bombardment which killed 15 people, most of whom were children.

This is what I experienced myself and there are many, many others whom I did not see who are experiencing the same situation in other areas of the Nuba region. It makes me want to scream, in the name of humanity, for all international community to stop this violence against children. And to urge concerned NGOs to take urgent action to provide for the desperate needs.