Violation of the Rights of Children in Sudan

Oral Statement by the Society for Threatened Peoples
In spite of the diminished influence of Dr. Hassan el-Turabi, the prominent radical Islamic ideologue, the human rights situation in Sudan has deteriorated in recent years. The incessant large-scale bombing of civilian targets in the south of the country and the Nuba mountains gives particular cause for concern. In 2000 the number of attacks on hospitals, schools, churches, refugee camps, food distribution centers and markets from the air doubled compared with the previous year, with at least 132 bombing raids on civilian facilities. In 1999 international observers recorded 65 air raids on civilian targets. During the early months of 2001 the Sudanese government has continued to pursue this policy, with its disregard for human rights. In February 2001 bombing raids were taking place on a daily basis in various regions of the Sudan including Bahr el-Ghazal, Equatoria, Southern Blue Nile, Southern Kordofan and Upper Nile. In the early months of this year and last year large numbers of civilians have been killed in these attacks. According to international observers there were at least five victims in February 2001.

Increasing numbers of children are being killed and injured during the bombing of civilian targets. They experience the terror engendered by the Sudanese government's air raids in a particularly vivid fashion and suffer traumatisation. Their parents, fearing air raids, refuse to let them attend school and kindergarten. If they fall ill they are not taken to the doctor or to hospital. Their already precarious humanitarian and health care situation has been rendered even more intolerable as a result of the air raids. Foreign relief and aid agencies are withdrawing their staff from the crisis region and sick people are avoiding hospitals. The Society for Threatened Peoples is appealing to the UN Commission for Human Rights to endeavor to secure an immediate halt to the bombing of civilian targets by the Sudanese air force and to have no-fly zones established in Southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains.

The increase in the level of bombing is particularly regrettable since the Sudanese government announced a suspension of the air raids on 19 April 2000, following international protests. nevertheless, on 6 May 2000 the Sudanese air force once again bombed the town of Rumbek. In this attack alone eleven people were killed. Sudan's bombing raids violate the most fundamental principles of international law. This bombing is causing suffering on a massive scale, as the number of victims indicates. Not only is the civilian population being intimidated and terrorized by the air raids, the raids are also being used deliberately in order to hinder humanitarian relief efforts.

The children of Southern Sudan are particularly affected by the Sudanese government's continuing use of hunger as a weapon for the conduct of war. In the provinces of Bahr el Ghazal and Unity State several hundred thousand people, tens of thousands of children among them, are waiting in vain for food relief, because the Sudanese authorities refuse to grant landing permission for flights organized by independent relief agencies. The United Nations Commission for Human Rights should call on Sudan to guarantee unrestricted access to all areas of conflict for the staff of international relief organizations and to stop hindering their work.