--------------FYI------------- Judy Miriga Diaspora Spokesperson Executive Director Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc., USA http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com Voice of America (Washington, DC)Sudan: After AU Summit Talks, Sudan Peace Still Elusive27 May 2013 Sudanese President Omar Al — Bashir (L) held talks at the AU summit with his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir on issues including oil, ongoing rebellions in the two countries, and new border crossings, but Bashir refused to discuss the disputed region of Abyei when Kiir tried to raise it. African leaders get ready to pose for a group photograph at the African Union (AU) summitin Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on May 25, 2013, at which the 50th anniversary of the founding of the AU's predecessor, the Organization of African Union (OAU) was celebrated and elusive peace in the Sudans was a talking point. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom in discussion after holding a news conference in Addis Ababa May 25, 2013, at which Kerry said he will soon name a new envoy for the Sudans. Former South African President Thabo Mbeki (C) looks as Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir (L) shakes hands with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir at a meeting in January 2013 of the AU panel trying to broker agreement on the disputed region of Abyei. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Abyei at this makeshift camp in South Sudan want to return to the disputed border region to take part in a referendum in October about the area's status. Khartoum is against an African Union proposal to hold a referendum on the future of the disputed region of Abyei because it says people from the Misseriya tribe, shown here during a protest in Nov. 2012, who are allied with Sudan, will not be allowed to take part in the vote. Sudan said it had nothing to do with a recent shutdown of oil production in the volatile border region. Production resumed at oil fields like Paloch in South Sudan, shown here, in April after being halted over a transit fee dispute in Jan. 2012. The leaders of the two Sudans announced plans at the African Union summit to open four new crossing points along their 2,200-kilometer border. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday threatened to close a pipeline that carries oil from South Sudan to export terminals in Sudan, dealing a blow to talks held hours earlier with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir at the African Union (AU) summit to iron out differences and move the Sudans toward peace. Speaking on national television after the Sudanese army said it had recaptured a town in the troubled South Kordofan province of Sudan from rebels, Bashir said Sudan would stop carrying crude from landlocked South Sudan as he accused Juba of backing insurgents fighting the government in Khartoum. Rows between Juba and Khartoum over oil, which is vital to both countries' economies, and backing for rebel group, as well as clashes at the border have kept tensions high between the two Sudans since South Sudan became an independent state in July 2011. All three issues were among obstacles to lasting peace that were discussed by Kiir ad Bashir when they met on the sidelines of the AU summit in Addis Ababa over the weekend. On a positive note, the two leaders announced they will open four new crossing points on their 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border to facilitate trade, Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti told reporters in Addis Ababa after the talks. Kiir pledged during the talks that South Sudan will not support rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, which remain part of Sudan even though many residents fought against Khartoum during Sudan's long civil war, Karti said. When the talks turned to oil, Bashir showed Kiir documents that, according to Karti, indicate that Sudan had nothing to do with a temporary shutdown of oil production in the volatile border region. The foreign minister blamed the shutdown on "elements along the border with South Sudan." The South Sudanese delegation refused to comment to reporters, other than to say the talks had gone well. Presidents of Sudan and South Sudan Meet at AU Conference Oil is key to both countries' economies. South Sudan gained control of three-quarters of Sudanese crude production when it split from Sudan in July 2011, but oil from the landlocked south has to be transported through pipelines running through Sudan to seaports in the north before it can be exported and generate revenue. A row with Khartoum, mainly over pipeline transit fees, led to Juba shutting down oil production in January 2012. Production resumed last month. Stalled Abyei Referendum Both sides described the talks between Kiir and Bashir at the AU summit as positive, even though the Sudanese leader refused to take up the issue of the disputed region of Abyei when Kiir raised it. Abyei straddles the border between the two Sudans, and is claimed by both Khartoum and Juba. The province, which is prized for its fertile land and small oil reserves, is currently under United Nations' administration. An AU panel led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki has proposed holding a referendum in October in Abyei to determine the area's status. A referendum on whether Abyei was to remain part of Sudan or become part of South Sudan was to have been held in conjunction with the 2011 referendum that gave South Sudan its independence, but that vote was delayed as violence flared in Abyei between ethnic Dinka residents, who are allied with the south, and Arab Misseriya nomads, who have ties to Sudan. Juba welcomed the AU's proposed October referendum on the region's status but Khartoum has said the vote won't happen because the Misseriya and other nomadic tribes who migrate through Abyei would not be able to vote. Early this month, the AU called for an urgent meeting of the leaders of the two Sudans to try to find a solution for the flashpoint region after Dinka tribal leader Kuwal Deng Mayok was killed in Abyei by a member of the Misseriya tribe. Kerry to Name New U.S. Envoy for Sudans In separate talks at the summit, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he will soon name a special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan to replace Princeton Lyman, who helped negotiate the recent resumption of oil exports from South Sudan through Sudan after a halt of more than a year. One of the new U.S. envoy's priorities will be to help resolve the status of Abyei, Kerry said. South Sudanese government spokesperson Barnaba Marial Benjamin said in Juba that the AU should be responsible for solving the continent's border disputes, including the ongoing disagreement between the Sudans over Abyei. While Marial held the AU responsible for the Abyei deadlock, Juba University Professor Afred Lokuji laid part of the blame with the South Sudanese government. Juba should take the lead in the process, he said, pinning the failure to resolve the status of the region on a lack of leadership in South Sudan since independence in 2011. Sudan News Agency (Khartoum)Sudan: President Al-Bashir - There Will Not Be Recognition or Negotiation With North Sector, Justice and Equality Movement and Sudan Liberation Front27 May 2013 Khartoum — President of the Republic and the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Omer Al-Bashir, stressed that as of today there will not be recognition of negotiation with the traitors, agents, mercenaries and terrorists of the North Sector, the Justice and Equality Movement or Sudan Liberation Movement. Addressing an spontaneous mass rally at the General Command of the Armed Forces in celebration of the liberation of Abu-Karshola town Monday, President Al-Bashir said that the cooperation agreements signed with South Sudan State shall be implemented as one package, warning South Sudan State government that Sudan will close down the oil pipeline if South Sudan continued to support and harbor the rebel movements in Darfur, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile. He said that the citizens of Nuba tribe are dear people who have nothing to do with the so-called Revolutionary Front or its agenda, or support to the rebellion, adding that the citizens of Nuba are innocent from the heinous conspiracies of the rebellion, indicating that the citizens of the Nuba Mountains have suffered from the woes inflicted on them by the rebels. Present at the mass rally were the First Vice President, the Vice President of the Republic, a number of senior government officials and commanders of the Armed Forces. Sudanese President Threatens to Close Oil Pipeline27 May 2013  Photo: Embassy of the Republic of SudanSudan is one of the rich countries in natural resources, oil, minerals, and hydro-electric generation resources. Khartoum — President Omer Al-Bashir on Monday called upon South Sudan to implement cooperation agreement and warned that supporting rebels will lead to stop oil flow for the international market. "If Juba supports rebel groups, this would lead to shutting down the pipeline" which carries the southern oil to Port Sudan, Bashir said in a speech delivered outside the headquarters of the Sudanese army during an spontaneous celebration of the taking back of Abu Kershola on Monday. Al-Bashir considered his words a final warning for the government of South Sudan to stop supporting rebel groups and threatened to cancel cooperation agreements in case it continued to do so. Earlier this month Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti met with president Salva Kiir in Juba telling him that they have evidences that some circles in his government continue to support the rebels. He further transmitted a demand from Bashir asking to allow the Sudanese troops to chase them inside the South Sudanese territory and to close some business offices in Juba allegedly importing military logistics for the rebel groups. But president Kiir announced that he had rejected these requests as the deployment of joint patrols with the cooperation of a UN force permits to monitor the common border. In September of last year, the two countries signed a series of cooperation agreements which covered oil, citizenship rights, security issues, banking, and border trade among others. After several months of an apparent setback, the two parties signed an implementation matrix in March of this year for these cooperation agreements. However observers agree that mistrust will continue to prevail between the two countries unless the conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile is peacefully settled. Sudan: Kerry - U.S. Working With AU to Reduce Sudan/South Sudan ViolenceBy Scott Stearns, 25 May 2013 Photo: Embassy of the Republic of SudanSudan is one of the rich countries in natural resources, oil, minerals, and hydro-electric generation resources. Addis Ababa — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says he is working with the African Union to end violence along the border between Sudan and South Sudan. America's top diplomat met separately with Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Ethiopia. Kerry says Sudan and South Sudan "are in a very delicate place right now" and it is important for the international community to help both of them focus on "developing the future, not on fighting the issues of the past." Long-standing disputes dominate tensions between the governments in Khartoum and Juba, including over the provinces of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, which remain in Sudan but where many people fought for years alongside those now in South Sudan. "In South Kordofan and Blue Nile you have people who for a long time have felt that they want their secular governance and their identity respected. They don't want independence. They are not trying to break away from Sudan," said Kerry. But he added that Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is "trying to press on them through authoritarian means and through violence an adherence to a standard that they simply don't want to accept with respect to Islamism." "What is critical here in my judgement is for President Bashir to respect what the people in South Kordofan and Blue Nile are trying to achieve." That is complicated by South Sudan's support for some of the groups fighting there. "And that makes the north feel like the south is instigating some of what is taking place. So we need to resolve those differences." Kerry said he will soon name a special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan to replace Princeton Lyman, who helped negotiate the resumption of oil exports from South Sudan through Sudan. Kerry says one of that new envoy's first priorities will be helping resolve the status of the oil-rich Abyei region, where there is a dispute over who is eligible to vote in a referendum on staying in Sudan or leaving to join South Sudan. Abyei's vote was to have been held in conjunction with the broader 2011 referendum on South Sudan's independence but was delayed because of violence between more permanent, largely-ethnic Dinka residents and migrants who are mostly ethnic Miseria. U.N. humanitarian head: Situation in Darfur 'extremely worrying'KHARTOUM, Sudan, May 24, 2013 (UPI via COMTEX) -- The 300,000 people fleeing fighting in Sudan's Darfur region so far in 2013 is more than those displaced in the previous two years, a U.N. official said Friday.
"Whether it is Darfur, South Kordofan or Blue Nile, what is needed above all else is for the fighting to stop and for the conflicts to be resolved by peaceful means," Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said in a release. The situation is "extremely worrying," Amos said from Khartoum after a four-day visit to Sudan and the Darfur region. "After 10 years of major humanitarian operations in Darfur, we need to find more sustainable ways of supporting displaced people who have no other option but to remain in the camps. We need to build stronger bridges between humanitarian and development work," Amos said. Amos said a woman living in a camp near El Fasher told her she "feels like a bird in a cage." The U.N. official said thousands of children born in the internally displaced persons camps "have never known life outside these camps. We cannot forget these children. They are the future of Darfur and of Sudan." In April, a Darfur Donors Conference raised $3.6 billion in pledges for Darfur, including a commitment of $2.6 billion from the government of Sudan. While welcoming the commitments, Amos said Sudan still has a "serious funding crisis," needing an estimated $7.2 billion for a multiyear, U.N.-backed effort to move away from food handouts and other emergency aid. She said she had "very constructive and informative meetings" with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and other senior government officials, and representatives of U.N. member countries, agencies, non-governmental organizations and humanitarian partners. www.upi.com World News Posted on May 24, 2013 at 12:33 AM c.2013 New York Times News Service ZAM ZAM CAMP, Sudan — They are the new faces in a place they would rather not be, and the scraps sheltering them from the desert sun are a testament to their sudden arrival: tents of scruffy tarpaulin propped up on crooked wood branches no higher than 4 feet tall. Bosh Khamis, 75, strolled through the section for newcomers, supporting his hunched body with a thick wooden cane. "I arrived here 12 days ago," he said. "There was fighting between the government and rebels. I saw people get killed." A surge in fighting since the beginning of the year in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur has led to an unnerving increase in civilian upheaval, displacing nearly 300,000 people, more than in the past two years combined, according to the United Nations. Some of the newly displaced have fled to camps like this one, Zam Zam, which holds more than 100,000 people, outside the town of El Fashir in northern Darfur. Over the years the camp has become such a fixture of the conflict in Darfur that many of its residents have lived here long enough to build permanent cottages of mud and straw. War in Darfur broke out a decade ago when non-Arab rebels took up arms against the central government in Khartoum, accusing it of neglect and discrimination. The government responded with overwhelming force, using militias that came to be known as the janjaweed. Only last year, there were some hopeful signs of improvement, with the United Nations reporting that tens of thousands of Darfurians had voluntarily left camps and returned home to rebuild their lives. They represented only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands displaced by years of fighting, but to many officials the exodus from the camps seemed an indication that the situation could be improving. In other parts of Darfur, however, conflict still raged, undercutting the early signs of progress. Now, the surge of new displacements is worrying officials from the United Nations and the African Union, who say that thousands of civilians fled the towns of Labado and Muhajeria in April when fighting broke out between Sudanese forces and one of three main Darfurian rebel groups that continue to fight the government. Beyond that, fighting between Arab groups over the ownership of gold mines in the Jebel Amer area this year also displaced thousands. Khamis is one of the few men who recently made it to the Zam Zam camp, having fled from Labado. Most of the camp's new arrivals are women and children. Manahil Adam, 25, who is also from Labado, said, "Our men sent us here on vehicles and said they would catch up later with us by foot and donkeys." Under a small, blue tarpaulin tent, crammed with five of her relatives, Adam, who arrived in the camp a week ago, blamed militias allied with the Sudanese government for the recent chaos. "They came, beat us up and took our money. They even whipped my aunt," she said. "Some of our men were killed." "It was the janjaweed," she added. The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of the conflict in Darfur, although the government puts the figure at 10,000. Currently 1.4 million receive humanitarian assistance in 99 camps in Darfur, and Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges. In 2011, one rebel group, the Liberation and Justice Movement, signed a peace agreement with the government in Doha, Qatar, with international support. The three other Darfurian rebel groups have refused to sign, however, aligning themselves with rebels from other volatile parts of Sudan who are seeking to topple the government in Khartoum by force. Most of the new arrivals to the Zam Zam camp, many of whom fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs, complained of a lack of adequate aid. "We want food and water," Khamis said. "There is not enough." Others seemed reluctant to criticize the situation in the camps, struggling with their sudden need for assistance at all. "Yes, I ate, from the food that I brought with me," one woman said hesitantly when asked whether she had anything to eat. The United Nations is assessing relief operations in Sudan, with Valerie Amos, the body's top humanitarian official, ending a four-day visit to the country Thursday. "I am disturbed by what I've seen today," said Amos, who visited the Zam Zam camp during her tour. "One of the major problems is funding, but we have to make the case for the donors." Newer, attention-grabbing crises in Syria and Mali have stretched money, U.N. officials said, and many donors have expressed concern over government restrictions on access to needy areas. (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) Everyone living in the camp feels the impact of less assistance, including those who came when it first opened in 2004. "There has been a reduction in foodstuff and portions of sugar and oil," one community leader told Amos. Ali Adam, an official with the Sudanese Humanitarian Affairs Committee, the government agency that oversees relief agencies working here, acknowledged that the situation for displaced people was difficult. "We understand that there is donor fatigue," he said, "but the humanitarian situation is bigger than what the government can handle." The recent surge in conflict and the declining situation in Darfur's camps have had a particularly hard impact on women, residents said. "We are like birds in a cage," one female resident of Zam Zam told Amos. "We can't leave after sunset; there are rapes; there are challenges to women's health," especially during childbirth. "The people of Sudan have suffered enough," Amos said. "Fighting needs to stop, and disputes need to be solved by peaceful means." Sudan: Opposition Accuse Khartoum of 'Unequal Treatment' of Darfur Displaced19 May 2013  Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran/UNUN Officers Discover Unexploded Bomb in Darfur Area Hit by Clashes (file photo). Khartoum — The National Consensus Forces (NCF), which include the main opposition parties in Sudan, have criticised the Khartoum government, civil society organisations and local media for their "deliberate disregard" of the humanitarian catastrophe among the displaced in Darfur. The NCF have also warned of the "divisive effect" of Khartoum's "selective policy" when dealing with the displaced. As reported extensively over the past weeks by Radio Dabanga, inter-tribal fighting and clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and armed rebel movements have forced thousands of people to flee their homes and villages. They are especially flocking to Nyala city camps where, since January their number has swelled to more than 300,000, according to the latest UN report released this week. "There is lots of attention for the displaced persons of Abu Karshola, Umm Rawaba and Al Rahad in North and South Kordofan, however, they make as if there are no other persons displaced from their homes in Sudan," NCF spokesman Kamal Omar Abdel Salam said in an interview with Radio Dabanga on Saturday. "The selectivity policy with which the National Congress Party disregards the plight of the displaced of Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, while providing ample aid to the displaced of Abu Karshola, Umm Rawaba and Al Rahad, is prompting claims of tribalism and racism," Salam continued. "All displaced persons in Sudan should be provided with relief equally, and in a speedy manner." Salam warns about "the mentality of racism and ethnicity with which the Khartoum regime handles the situation", stressing: "This is the primary cause of the current situation facing our country. There should be no difference between Sudanese displaced". Salam made an appeal via Radio Dabanga to all organisations including the UN to urgently intervene in assisting all the displaced in Sudan. "The Khartoum regime depends on discrimination as an extremist approach. This requires that we speed-up the overthrow of the regime to maintain Sudan's unity and cohesion." In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Dr Mariam Sadiq Al-Mahdi, a Leading figure in the National Umma Party, has termed the government's exclusive focus on the displaced in and around Umm Rawaba and Al Rahad only, while ignoring he displaced in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile as "scandalous". "Khartoum is perpetuating a policy of 'divide and rule', stirring-up hatred between citizens of the same homeland," he said, stressing that "the government's accusation that SRF is behind the suffering of the displaced persons poses a threat to social cohesion and reconciliation among the community. "In this context, the Khartoum government is directly responsible for all citizens in any region in Sudan," Dr Al-Mahdi said. She lamented that the government was "waging war on citizens in Darfur, exercising murder and rape and causing them to become displaced. "Khartoum's selective focus constitutes a major threat, not to the future and the unity of Sudan but also poses a threat to social cohesion and reconciliation in the community," she said. "This opens the door to unprecedented policies in Sudan such as assassinations." Dr Al-Mahdi called on all Sudanese to stand united against the policies of the National Congress Party "which is working to break-up the country". Sudan: Khartoum Behind Fresh Wave of Violence Over Gold in Darfur - Report17 May 2013 Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran/UNUN Officers Discover Unexploded Bomb in Darfur Area Hit by Clashes (file photo). Khartoum — A new report argues that the Sudanese government's struggle for control of Darfur's gold resources, rather than inter-tribal conflicts is behind the recent surge in violence in the war-torn western region. The report, titled Darfur's Gold Rush: State-Sponsored Atrocities 10 Years after the Genocide, has cast doubt on official rhetoric from Khartoum that tribal rivalries are to blame for rising instability. It found that the Sudanese government is complicit in a violent power play for control of North Darfur's lucrative gold mines, as part of its heightened economic interest in the region and an ongoing campaign of "state-sponsored atrocity". According to the report released earlier this month by the US-based Enough Project, Arab Abbala tribesmen are being armed by Khartoum as part of a bid to wrest control of gold fields in Jebel Amer from the Beni Hussein tribe, who are the traditional custodians of the area. "While we do not have documented evidence that the government of Sudan ordered the Abbala offensive, it's clear that the historically state-aligned tribe, with ties to the janjaweed, was not acting without at least tacit government consent", researchers noted. VIOLENCE ESCALATES: The escalation of violence since January 2013 has plunged the region into the worst humanitarian crisis in recent years. The UN estimates that some 150,000 people have been displaced following a spate of attacks by armed Abbala militias, elements of which include the notorious janjaweed forces, which hit the headlines 10 years ago for brutal atrocities allegedly committed at the behest of the Sudanese government. The report argues that Khartoum has again reprised the role of Abbala militia as a "tool of state repression", suggesting the government is employing the same "paralleling tactics" it used during the height of the conflict in 2003-04. "For over a decade, the government of Sudan has pursued a strategy of economic plunder of the periphery through violence and forcible demographic change", the report said. A sedentary farming and cattle-rearing Arab community, the Beni Hussein have historically been exempted from attack by state-sponsored militias. However, the recent discovery of gold reserves in their home area, and intense economic pressure on the Sudanese government following South Sudan's secession and the subsequent loss of oil revenues, has fundamentally altered that dynamic, the report said. GOLD BOOM: Jebel Amer last year produced a third of Sudan's gold, despite the absence of major mining operations or foreign direct investment. Satellite imagery included in the report shows evidence of the presence of commercial mining equipment, as well as the transformation of a relatively desolate area into a thriving mining outpost within a few months. Darfuri sources interviewed for the report also suggested that North Darfur governor Osman Yosuf Kibir was interested in securing a stake in the mines. However, due to the Beni Hussein's control of the permit process, Kibir was only able to obtain licences for less than 20 mining sites, even though he owns the pumps needed to operate far more. Researchers from the Enough Project say that during the height of the latest round of violence, Abbala militia leaders spoke publicly on Sudanese radio, bragging about their position within the state security forces and in many instances used state-supplied vehicles and weapons to conduct attacks. Fear and anger after Sudan rebel strike2013-04-28 19:56 Multimedia · User Galleries · News in Pictures Send us your pictures · Send us your stories
Khartoum - Fear and anger on Sunday followed a Sudanese rebel strike on a major town residents said had been left unguarded and was hit during co-ordinated attacks in the insurgents' most audacious act in years. In Umm Rawaba, a previously peaceful community of thousands which bore the brunt of Saturday's attack, residents said about 300 youths stoned a convoy carrying North Kordofan state governor Murghani Hussein Zaki-Adeen, and federal Electricity Minister Osama Abdullah Mohammed. "Where were you yesterday?" witnesses said protesters shouted after the governor visited the homes of people who died in the unrest. Youths then set fire to local government buildings, said witnesses. Residents complained that the town, the second largest in North Kordofan, had been left undefended when insurgents briefly occupied it on Saturday. The death toll was unclear but included some policemen, according to residents and officials. Rebels said eight of their number died during the operation, four in battle and four in accidents. North Kordofan has been largely free from the insurgencies in the Darfur region to its west, and South Kordofan to its south. But a rebel coalition, the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), said it attacked Umm Rawaba and several other areas as part of its strategy to reach the capital Khartoum and overthrow the 24-year regime of President Omar al-Bashir. Army chased out Umm Rawaba is about 100km east of the state capital El Obeid, which is home to an air force base and on Sunday was tense with armoured vehicles deployed and soldiers in the streets, a resident said. SRF chief of staff Abdulaziz Al-Hilu on Saturday said rebels seized government garrisons at Abu Kershola and Um Ktera before "chasing" the army to Umm Rawaba, Allah Kareem and to the edge of North Kordofan's El Rahad town. Abu Kershola and Um Ktera were still in rebel hands on Sunday, while two additional South Kordofan garrisons nearby had also been captured by SRF, said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). Residents of Abu Kershola, a village about 65km south of El Rahad, said they were living rough after fleeing. "We are staying under trees and we are using camels to bring water from far away. Some families have nothing to eat. We are calling for the government to deliver aid," said one of the displaced, Ahmed Ibrahim. "There are just a few trees to shelter the young children and old people," said another man, Hamid Ahmed Mohammed, who fled the village early on Saturday. "There is no food and we brought our water in by donkey," he said. They could not say how many people were displaced because they were scattered over a wide area. No utilities Calm had returned to Umm Rawaba town on Sunday but there was no electricity or water following the rebel attacks, townspeople said. "People are still fearful," one resident said. Hafez Mohammed Hamoud, North Kordofan's Minister of Finance, said Allah Kareem and the area outside El Rahad were also "under control completely". Sudan's army spokesperson could not be reached but on Saturday, quoted by SUNA, he said the rebels had been "defeated" and had scattered in small groups. The SRF consists of SPLM-N and Darfur's main rebel groups the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). In 2008 JEM pushed all the way to Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman where government forces said they were beaten. Darfur gold mine collapse kills 60 Displaced people take shelter in a public building in El Sireaf, in North Darfur state, on January 14, 2013, after they fled tribal clashes in the Jabel Amir area, in a photo released by the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). More than 60 people were killed when a desert gold mine collapsed in an area of Sudan's Darfur where hundreds died in fighting over the precious commodity in January-February, the district chief said Thursday. It was not known how many people may still be missing after Monday's accident in Jebel Amir district, more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) northwest of the North Darfur state capital El Fasher. "The number of people who died is more than 60," Haroun al-Hassan, local commissioner for Jebel Amir, said on Thursday, adding that rescue operations at the unofficial mine were still taking place. "I cannot give exact figures because no one got precise numbers of how many people were going inside the tunnel," which descends 40 metres (yards), he said. Rescuers were using hand tools to try to reach the victims, he said, without specifying whether anyone might still be alive. "We cannot use machines because if they came near, the ground will collapse. People are using traditional tools and because of this, the rescue is very slow," Hassan said, unable to give more details.  A tub full of gold nuggets is shown at a gold mine in the Sudanese desert, 800 kilometres northeast of the capital Khartoum, on October 3, 2011. "I myself saw this land collapse. It started from Monday evening but the main collapse happened on Tuesday," said a miner who works in a different part of the area. He said it is located in the hill or "jebel" which gives the area its name. The miner, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that it would be difficult to know how many men were buried. "Nobody takes the names of those who go inside. Only their colleagues or their relatives know where they are," he said. A resident of El Sireaf, the main town in the surrounding region, said he visited the remote site of the accident. "The problem is that those small mines are so close together and if one of them falls it will affect the others. That is what happened in this mine. All the neighbouring mines collapsed," he said, also declining to be named. Residents and members of the security forces were using hand tools to dig out the victims, he added. Sudan is trying to boost exports of gold and other non-petroleum products after the separation of South Sudan two years ago left Khartoum without three-quarters of its crude oil production.  Sudanese gold minors take refuge in Saraf Omra, North Darfur, on January 13, 2013, after fleeing clashes in Jabel Amir. More than 60 people were killed when a desert gold mine collapsed in the area, the district chief says. Inflation has soared above 40 percent and the currency has plunged in value because Sudan lost most of its international payments capacity and half its fiscal revenues. Sudan's Mining Minister Kamal Abdel Latif said traditional land-based mining produced 41 tonnes of gold worth $2.5 billion to November last year, with another 50 tonnes targeted for this year. In 2011, the government estimated there were more than 200,000 unlicenced artisanal gold producers, generating most of the country's output of the metal. The country's central bank has entered the market, trying to buy from the small producers. A minority of Sudan's gold production comes from official mines. Seven weeks of clashes between two Arab tribes in Jebel Amir in January-February killed more than 500 members of the Beni Hussein tribal group, a Benni Hussein member of parliament for the area said earlier. The violence uprooted an estimated 100,000 people. The fighting between the Beni Hussein and Rezeigat erupted when a leader of the latter tribe who ho is a border guard officer apparently laid claim to a gold-rich area inside Beni Hussein territory, Amnesty International said. One humanitarian source said the Beni Hussein had refused to pay newly-imposed government mining fees which amounted to "huge, huge money". |
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