SUDAN – NUBA SUFFERING

Jan 1999

DUR 13’00”

Lokky: “From the Lokychoggio airbase in Northern Kenya, a Hercules aircraft claws into the sky, taking food-aid to South Sudan. Painted United Nations white, they bear the blue logo of the World Food Programme – a hand clutching ears of corn. On the ground, aid workers and air-crew prepare further air-drops of food, medicines or clothes.”

Lokky: “The UN aid effort in South Sudan is costing almost $1 million a day. But the UN says it may take another year for the 2 million famine victims to fully recover – and so the aid flights continue.”

Take-off over UN base/light aircraft flight: “But there’s one part of war-ravaged Sudan that UN flights aren’t going to. In tiny Cesna aircraft, these aid workers are flying in to the remote and rugged Nuba Mountains.”

Flight: “Despite the on-going famine, the Sudan Government has banned all agencies, including the UN, from taking aid here. Because of this blockage, the Nuba remain one of the most-isolated areas on earth.”

Aid delivery/audience etc.: “The Nuba Mountains have been closed to all outsiders for over a decade. Only a tiny group of maverick aid agencies, like the UK’s Christian Solidarity Worldwide, do work here, defying the wishes of the Sudan Government and in danger of being shot down. They provide a fragile lifeline to the outside world.”

Trek with soldiers/aid/across river: “It’s a two-hour walk from the plains up to the first villages. The Nuba have fled into the hills, where they say they can better defend themselves from Government attacks.”

“The Nuba Mountains are on the border of North and South Sudan. The Nuba people support the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army of the South. Sudan is split into an Arabic, largely Muslim North, and a black African Christian and animist South. The Southern rebels are fighting what they say is aggression by an Islamic extremist North. It’s Africa’s longest-running war – and the Nuba are caught right in the middle. Less than half the original 3 million population survive here.”

Arrival at first villages: “The Nuba are the oldest indigenous people in Sudan – the legendary “first people” of this, Africa’s largest country. They speak over 50 different languages. They trace a history back 7,000 years – when the Nuba Kingdoms stretched across all Sudan and Southern Egypt.”

Aid delivery: “Two plane-loads of medical aid are delivered to Nyakama village. Local medic Joseph Kunda inspects the supplies. He tells us there is only one doctor left here to serve the million or so Nuba population – and only a handful of medics like himself. There are almost no medicines.”

I/V Joseph Kunda: “Hundreds of people will die with no medicines to treat them, especially children, infants… An estimation, I can say, 200-300 people died around this area…”

Skinning goat: “A goat is slaughtered to honour our arrival. The rare presence of guests is a cause for celebration. When crops fail due to drought, livestock are one of the precious few buffers against hunger here. The Nuba have learnt to live with famine as an old friend.”

I/V Joseph Kunda: “People dig roots and eat them from the ground; children die from malnutrition and some aliments caused by starvation.”

Farming scenes: “The Nuba used to farm the fertile soils of the plains. But Government forces launched a scorched earth policy – burning and looting villages – so they retreated into the hills… Here they must scratch survival from the thin, rocky soils… That’s in a good year – when there are rains. Last year, when famine hit South Sudan, an estimated 100,000 Nuba faced starvation. But the Government blockage of the Nuba remained in place – and they were the only people in all Sudan denied UN food aid.”

Three women with water jugs set-up: “These three women lost children to hunger; there are many more like them.”

I/V Naima Kuku: “There was a massive starvation; I was dehydrated and had no milk for my child; we went to the forest to find wild fruits. Maybe that’s why my child died – we received no help.”

Three in wide shot: “All three are also widows; they lost their husbands in the war. Haida Osman says she doesn't want to have another family - despite the suffering, no one comes here to help them. Those Nuba children who have survived still show signs of recent hunger. And the rainy season – the time when famine may strike again – is now just beginning. The Nuba ask why they’ve been forgotten when Kosovo receives so much aid.”

I/V Joseph Kunda: “What the West has done in Kosovo is very good, to save people from problems. But why they don't also want to help people in Sudan? I also don't know. The war started many years before here than in Kosovo – millions of people have died in Sudan // I thought the UN was to help all the people in the world. But here it’s the opposite.”

Nuba soldiers/statics of Nuba hills: “They may lack even the basics of human survival – but every Nuba household boasts a gun. They accuse the Islamic extremist regime of deliberately closing them off from the outside world – and pursuing a Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, to exterminate them.”

I/V Abbas: “We are fighting to restore our dignity and reserve our culture from the process Arabisation… which is taking place through the policies of the Government, the Islamic Government in Khartoum. We think of ourselves are Nubas, we don't mind being Muslims or Christians because, as Nubas, have Muslims and many Christians. The very important thing is to keep ourselves as Nubas in Sudan.”

Dawn statics/Comm walking with troops: “At dawn the following morning, Yuosif Harun, rebel commander for the whole Nuba, arrives. He’s walked all night to reach us. He tells us there have been 20 or more Government attacks this year. Over 3,000 Nuba civilians have been captured and taken to the so-called “Peace Camps”.”

I/V Commander Yuosif Kara Harun, SPLA-NUBA: “They call them “Peace Camps”, - but they’re not peaceful places. The people are divided into four groups; the boys to be trained as soldiers for indoctrination; the girls to be taken as wives for soldiers; the adults are taken to work in the military farms. If they suspect you are a rebel soldier – you will be killed immediately.”

Set-up 3 boys: “These three young men have recently escaped from the Peace Camps. They were forced to train as Government soldiers, then they were sent to fight against their own Nuba people.”

I/V Khamis Abdullah: “They tied our hands behind our backs and poured water over us; they rolled us on the ground and beat us. Many died. // After torture, they took us to the military farms; here we had to work and harvest food.”

I/V Yasir Iris: “They took one of the prisoners to be killed. When I had seen them kill him, I asked the Commander if I could use the bush to urinate. The soldier they sent to escort me shot at me when I ran, but he missed and I escaped.”

PoW camp: “Evidence from elsewhere in South Sudan supports their story. Many of the prisoners of war held by the rebels have been forced to fight in this way. Amongst the 200 or so PoWs in this rebel base, around half are Nuba. The story of one is typical.”

I/V Ibrahim Mohammed: “I was a student but I was captured by the army in a roadblock when travelling from the Nuba and Khartoum. I was sent to an army camp to train for one year. After training I was sent to fight the SPLA in the South – that’s when I was captured. I saw the Government forces capture civilians and torture them at the base – with their nails pulled out with pliers. Rebel soldiers weren’t even captured – they just killed them instantly on the spot. Sometimes they were interrogated – but then they were killed… I hated the horror and cruelty of this torture.”

I/V Yuosif: “Young recruits, they brainwash them – and they are trained to come and fight blindly here, but the adults often manage to escape and avoid fighting.”

“Most disturbing of all, the Nuba claim UN food aid is being used in the Peace Camps as another weapon to destroy the Nuba people.”

I/V Yuosif: “Sometimes, during a famine and starvation, our people hear there is UN relief aid being given out in the Peace Camps so they run there – and then they are forced into the camps, into the army, to fight, to suffer, just to get the aid. They know that if we had food here all the people would leave the Government areas and come back; that’s how they use UN food aid as a weapon in the war against us.”

Set-up Caroline and soldiers leaving: “Relief workers and British Politician Baroness Cox led the mission to the Nuba for aid agency Christian Solidarity Worldwide.”

I/V Caroline Cox, British Politician and President of CSW: “In my visit to the Nuba Mountains this time, I think the most disturbing aspect was the fact that there are these thousands of people completely cut off, who are suffering very recent raids. // These things are happening now, the world doesn't know, aid groups are not there – the people have nothing, they’re cut-off, isolated and dying.”

I/V Dr. John Garang, Chairman, Sudan People’s Liberation Army: “They think it is an area in the North, there is lots of ethnic cleansing in the Nuba Mountains– so they have a great deal to hide in the Nuba Mountains – they are very uncomfortable about any foreigners, relief workers, going to the Nuba mountains – it’s a closed district for the regime.”

Flight out mix to UN aid flight: “As we prepare to leave, we hear news that the first ever UN mission has just been allowed into the Nuba Mountains to assess aid needs. But as the UN well know, that’s the start of a long process of negotiating access – which the Government can frustrate for years… And the Nuba do not have time on their side.”

ENDS