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Fight for Survival in Sudan Killing Fields 

Jeevan Vasagar, The Guardian

November 15, 2004

On their knees and begging for food, the women pleaded at the feet of the commander, Lam Akol, but there was little he could do. They offered him a chicken, one of the few remaining in their village, as a gift.

Ignoring their tears, the Sudanese rebel commander offered them harsh advice, telling them to "tighten their belts."

"One day you are on top, and one day you are on the receiving end," said Akol, a plump soldier - with a PhD from Imperial College London - who divides his time between Sudan and a home he keeps in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. "There is no place of total security."

Certainly not for the villagers who were looking to him for shelter and food. The women of Shilluk, in southern Sudan , have become scavengers in an area of the country largely ignored as the world focuses on the western region of Darfur .

This Thursday, the UN security council meets in Nairobi in a move intended to pressure the Sudan government and southern rebels to sign a final peace deal which will end two decades of civil war.

The conflict was meant to be as good as over already after the two sides signed a power-sharing deal in May. But this is what passes for "peace" in the Shilluk region.

Fighting between a government-backed militia and gunmen loyal to Akol destroyed these villagers' crops and homes, leaving them facing starvation. As the rainy season comes to an end, armed men on both sides are preparing for renewed fighting.

The Guardian is the first newspaper to witness the devastation caused by the clashes - an unfair fight that led to an estimated 600 people being killed and another 50,000 fleeing.

When the government militia attacked villages in Shilluk, it showed no mercy. Aid agency compounds were ransacked and torched. The onslaught was backed up, according to survivors' accounts, by a Sudanese military motorboat which raked villages with gunfire from a river.

Ninyang Kir died because she was too old to run away. Her family returned to find her burned body inside her grass hut.

According to the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, a US-funded group of international monitors, the attacks began in March, and were sparked when Akol, a local military commander who had been loyal to the Sudanese government, decided to defect.

Akol merged his forces with anti-government rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Army, which has been fighting a 21-year war against Khartoum . The villages under Akol's control were suddenly being controlled by rebels, a move that provoked the Khartoum government into swift retribution.

The Shilluk kingdom straddles the White Nile and is the gateway for river traffic between the capital and the oilfields and lush farmlands of the south. The government was not prepared to surrender it lightly.

A combined force of government-backed militiamen, supported by Sudanese police and security services, was dispatched to recapture the territory. According to survivors, Akol's outnumbered troops were overrun and could not prevent a rampage of looting and destruction in the recaptured villages.

The government does not deny that fighting took place, but has accused the rebels of using civilians as "human shields", and insists the villagers' mud and straw homes were prone to catching fire in battle.

In Popwojo village, survivors claimed that civilians were murdered and huts destroyed after the militiamen had routed Akol's troops. Tip Ajang, a middle-aged man in a ragged purple sweater, told how he was forced to leave his grandmother, Ninyang Kir, behind.

"When we heard the sound of bullets, we ran. We left my grandmother inside her hut because she was not able to move at all. I didn't think these people would kill an old woman, but when we came back, two days after, we found all that was left was her foot stretched outside the hut. She had been burned with the hut."

The militiamen who carried out the attacks were not the Arab Janjaweed of Darfur, according to survivors, but black Africans in the service of the Sudanese government. "They are Africans, but it is the Arabs [the northern government] who generate this," said John Amuch, trainee pastor of the Lutheran church in Popwojo.

"It is because of poverty. When someone gives you something for your children, and says 'do this for me', they do it."

The destruction in Popwojo appears to have been systematic. There is similar damage in the nearby village of Nyilwak , where the compounds of two aid agencies, the Christian charity World Vision and veterinary charity VSF, were destroyed.

World Vision's Sudan programme director, Tom Mulhearn, said: "We had already evacuated by the time the troops came in. We were advised of what was going on by [UN] security, and removed our staff.

"We're in south Sudan to promote peace and stability. Obviously, this is a setback."

Following the attacks, rebel forces counter-attacked and the villages changed hands again. The frontline between the two sides now lies two hours' walk from the village of Popwojo , across a swampland.

In the Shilluk kingdom, it is nature and not man which seems to be keeping the peace. A stream of rainy season floodwater, too deep for a pick-up filled with troops to cross safely, runs between the opposing frontlines.

Analysts fear that when the dry season comes, later this month, government forces will seek to retake the territory they have lost.

Conflict on two fronts:

What are the conflicts in Sudan ?

There are two. The Khartoum government has been fighting since 1983 with rebels in the south, the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

In February 2003, a new war broke out in Darfur , between the government and two rebel factions, the Sudan Liberation Army, and the Justice and Equality Movement. To fight this rebellion, the government mobilised an Arab militia force, known as the Janjaweed.

What are the conflicts about?

Both the southern rebels and the ones in Darfur complain that a narrow elite, drawn chiefly from northern Arab tribes, has a monopoly on power in Sudan . The southerners are Christians or animists who oppose the sharia law applied in government-controlled areas. Both sets of rebels define themselves as black African, so there is also a racial element.

How bad is the situation for ordinary people?

The UN believes Darfur is spiralling towards anarchy, with both government and rebels losing control of their forces. Aid agencies are hampered by the violence. The harvest is expected to be poor and more than a million people are crowded into refugee camps. In the south, aid agencies are slowly beginning to repair the damage done by two decades of war, but conditions are desperately backward - there is not an inch of tarmac road, and few hospitals.

What are the hopes for peace?

Hopes are high in the south, where an agreement has been signed, and the UN is pushing both sides to reach a final deal. But there are still blackspots like Shilluk, where there was large-scale violence this year.

In Darfur , the government has agreed to a no-fly zone recently, as well as signing a ceasefire in April. But a lack of trust and inability by leaders on both sides to control forces on the ground has meant that violence is on the increase. The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by both sides.

What is the world doing about it?

The UN security council is holding a special session in Nairobi this week to focus attention on both conflicts. Britain could be asked to contribute peacekeeping troops to an international force for Darfur . Two previous security council resolutions have threatened Khartoum with sanctions if it fails to curb the violence. The US ambassador to the UN, John Danforth, has hinted that offers of aid may be withdrawn if a peace agreement is not reached swiftly in the south.