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 لماذا لا نستطيع الانتظار: الحرب فى جنوب كردفان و النيل الأزرق -- SfP
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بينما تستعد النساء و المنظمات و البلدان للاحتفاء بالثامن من مارس، تضطر النساء فى المناطق المتأثرة بالحرب فى جنوب كردفان و فى معسكرات اللاجئين لاستخدام ورق الأشجار بديلا عن الفوط الصحية.
(شبكة أخوات السلام)
PATHWAYS TO SUSTAINABLE PEACE IN SUDAN: WHY WE CAN’T WAIT!
Statement by the Sisterhood for Peace Network on the Conflict in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile
5 March 2012
As Nuba women, we have organized weekly teleconferences…since the war started. In the winter we found out they needed clothes, especially children… Each woman [donated clothes] and made a donation of US $80 . We were not able to ship the clothes because it cost US $15,000. We found out that in the Nuba Mountains women needed underwear and sanitary pads. When a woman menstruates she can’t use just anything. The women use tree leaves during their monthly cycles. We were going to buy sanitary pads [but decided to send underpants for women]. As a woman if you hear about anything like that anywhere in the world, won’t you contribute to end this? Ammouna, a US-based Nuba activist.
“It breaks my heart that one’s own government is committing such atrocities against its own people. We have nowhere to turn to except to the international community … to intervene and do something.” Nania Konda, Executive Director, NRRDO, a Nuba activist, currently in Juba, South Sudan
As women’s organizations, movements and activists around the world prepare for the International Women’s Day (8 March), women affected by the on-going war in Sudan’s South Kordofan and the Blue Nile States are having to use tree leaves in place of sanitary towels; to give birth without any form of medical assistance; and are experiencing gender-based violence at the hands of Sudan’s armed forces.
The Sisterhood for Peace, a network of women activists from across Sudan, South Sudan and the Diaspora, met in Boston from 17 to 19 February 2012, to identify priorities for action on Sudan and South Sudan in the coming six months. After reviewing the multiple, interrelated crises and concerns, the group decided to prioritize advocacy on the on-going humanitarian crisis and human rights abuses in South Kordofan and Blue Nile States. We urge the Government of Sudan to stop the aggression in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile States and elsewhere in Sudan. We further urge the United States Government and the international community to rise to the challenge and support the efforts of the people of Sudan to end war and to ensure humanitarian assistance reaches those who need it in the war affected areas in South Kordofan, the Blue Nile and in refugee camps in Ethiopia and South Sudan, especially the Yida and Doro refugee camps in South Sudan’s Unity and Upper Nile States, respectively.
The Current Situation in South Kordofan, the Blue Nile and in Refugee Camps:
The armed conflict, which re-erupted in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile states in June 2011, resulted from lack of implementation of commitments in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the war between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in 2005. Commitments included popular consultations in the two regions to determine their relationship to the central government and to gather views on other issues. These consultations were not carried out in South Kordofan and the results of the popular consultations in the Blue Nile area were not publicized. Both regions have endured economic, political marginalization and cultural and ethnic-based discrimination since Sudan’s independence in 1956.
In South Kordofan, several organizations and agencies including Ru’ya Association and the Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported accounts of unlawful killings, mass destruction and #####ng of civilian property, as well as other incidents, which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in South Kordofan. OCHA estimates that about “300,000 people in South Kordofan and 66,000 people in Blue Nile State have been displaced or severely affected by the fighting”. Of those, over 19,000 are in refugee camps in Unity State of South Sudan and the number increases every day. According to Nuba Women for Education and Development Association (NuWEDA), in addition to several large pockets of IDPs in South Kordofan State, at least 3,000 families were in acute need of assistance in IDP camps in Khartoum.
Refugees from 30 villages in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan interviewed by Ru’ya Association in January 2012 said the Sudan Armed Forces specifically target civilians and livestock in Nuba villages around Kadugli, especially in areas where the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, North Sudan (SPLM-N) has presence. All groups and individuals interviewed in the camp by Ru’ya asserted that Sudan Army Forces (SAF) have targeted and continue to target Nuba villages around Kadugli town and in different localities where Nuba make up the majority of the population, especially in those areas where the SPLM-N has presence. The Government of Sudan has also extended its direct aggression to neighboring South Sudan by bombing refugee camps at the borders. The Government of Sudan is reportedly launching its third offensive, targeting civilians in SPLM-N held areas in the South part of the Nuba Mountains.
In the Blue Nile area, OCHA reported that attacks by the Government of Sudan army have forced over 27,500 civilians in the state to flee to Ethiopia. The Sudanese Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (SRRA), which visited the area in December 2011, reported that villages were deserted as a result of aerial bombardment and other aggression. SRRA reported that 11 were killed in an aerial bombing that targeted the crowded village market of Balatuma village. In January 2012, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that the number of refugees from the Blue Nile State to Upper Nile State in the Republic of South Sudan continued to grow fast. At the Doro refugee site alone, UNHCR reported that there were 28,000 refugees in January. The site receives about 200 refugees daily. UNHCR reported that there were about 25,000 forcibly displaced persons who were “not reached yet” in January.
A more recent report estimates that over half a million were displaced because of the violence in the two states. It is estimated that women and children constitute a high proportion of those displaced.
The Impact of the violence in South Kordofan on Women and Girls:
The conflict and violence in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile states affect all people regardless of their gender; but women have been specifically affected and are now witnessing what women in South Sudan, Darfur and in the Nuba Mountains have experienced during previous and ongoing wars in Sudan.
A report by Sisterhood for Peace’s partner organization, Ru’ya Association, which is based on a visit to Yida Refugee camp in Unity State, South Sudan, indicates that women are particularly affected by extreme poverty and deteriorating health. Ru’ya reported that many women in the camp have suffered gender-based-violence such as rape, sexual harassment and intimidation. Women and girls also face exploitation, domestic violence and trauma.
Reports of sexual violence are particularly disturbing. Ru’ya reported that in one of the villages, “approximately 400 women and children were abducted. …no body knows where they are”. Three young women, ages 14, 18 and 18 told Ru’ya that five or six soldiers raped each of them.
Journalist Nicholas Kristof also documented the case of Elizabeth Kafi, a 22-year-old Nuba woman who said she was kidnapped in December 2011 by Sudanese uniformed soldiers. Kafi told Kristof that she watched army soldiers gang-rape then kill a Nuba woman and also reported gang-rape by Sudanese army soldiers of two women who are 14 and 15 years old.
Similarly, women from Blue Nile State, who have experienced neglect and lack of access to education for decades and who have endured violence in previous wars, continue to suffer in refugee camps and as displaced since the eruption of the current armed conflict. Lucy Sharma, a US-based activist from the Blue Nile stated at the Sisterhood for Peace Network’s meeting on 19 February that women in the camps in South Sudan and Ethiopia, who are invisible to the world, are in dire need of food, clean water and medical supplies and other basic services.
In addition, women in the Nuba Mountains and in refugee camps lack basic needs, such as clothes, food and sanitary towels and are having to use tree leaves as sanitary pads. In Yida Camp, most women, girls and children lack clothes, shoes and food. Malnutrition is high among children.
What We Want You to Do
We acknowledge the key role various Sudanese and South Sudanese organizations and communities as well as international organizations are playing to address the needs of people affected by war in the two areas and to achieve peace. We also believe the current crisis and abuses will only end if the people of Sudan and the people and governments around the world, including in the United States took decisive actions to protect the people of Sudan and promote human rights across the country.
We therefore urge regional powers and the international community to urgently support these efforts and also ensure the protection of civilians and facilitate access to humanitarian assistance by all those who need it, taking into account the specific needs of women and girls that are often neglected in humanitarian and crisis situations.
Our membership, which also includes women of Sudanese origin who are U.S. citizens or citizens of European countries including United Kingdom and Sweden, request that the African Union, the United States Government, the European Union and the United Nations take the following URGENT measures:
- Call for the deployment of a United Nations force with a strong mandate to protect civilians in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile States;
- Implement a no-fly zone in order to protect civilians and to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid.
- Allow Lady Valarie Amos, the UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, to access the war affected areas in Sudan.
- Organize a visit to war affected areas in Sudan by Margot Wallstrom, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Sexual Violence in Conflict.
- Press the Government of Sudan to open passage for humanitarian assistance to reach the internally displaced.
- Support fact-finding missions, research and needs assessments by local researchers in war-affected areas and in refugee camps in Ethiopia and South Sudan.
- Provide humanitarian assistance to refugee populations in Unity and Upper Nile States in South Sudan, Ethiopia and elsewhere, taking into account the specific needs of women and girls.
- Support a solidarity fund, to address the immediate and long-term needs of women affected by conflict in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile States and in refugee camps.
- Support a non-violent, non-military holistic approach toward achieving a comprehensive peaceful solution that addresses the root causes of all the conflicts in Sudan, including bad governance.
- Ensure the full participation of women in peace efforts.
- Call for an investigation of crimes committed, including gender-based violence and other war crimes and crimes against humanity to bring the perpetrators to justice.
We want PEACE, no more WAR! Please TAKE ACTION
The Sisterhood for Peace is a network of women that reflects the geographic, religious, racial and ethnic diversity of both Republic of Sudan and Republic of South Sudan. We stand in full solidarity with the women and men of Abyei, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile States, Al-Manasir areas, Eastern Sudan and Darfur. We stand in full solidarity with the women and men of Jongeli and all areas affected by violence in South Sudan and urge the Government of South Sudan to ensure post-war construction efforts support good-governance, freedom of association and equality between women and men.
(عدل بواسطة nada ali on 03-06-2012, 02:33 PM)
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nada ali
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست