Al-Bashir's government has not hesitated to reach for its ammunition against South Kordofan. Phillips recalled that the National Congress Party's troops “attacked and sacked the capital of Kadulgi” on June 6, then “launched a campaign of terror from the skies” against residents.
Kadulgi's Anglican bishop testified to the devastation the Khartoum government was inflicting on the capital.
“I hear almost every day new reports from the Nuba Mountains of the Sudan Armed Forces indiscriminately bombing civilians, including children and women and old people, in places not known to be near military installations. I see photos of the people maimed and killed in these bombing raids.”
“To me, these people are not numbers and statistics. They are my neighbors, my friends, local business leaders, and members of my congregation.”
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Phillips, who was in the Nuba Mountains in early July, recalled interviewing residents who had fled Kadulgi, “all of whom shared the same basic story” of Sudan Armed Forces troops conducting house-to-house searches. They were looking, he said, for anyone who identified as a Nuba citizen, a Christian, or a member of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
“Anyone fitting this description was either killed on the spot or arrested and never seen again,” Phillips testified.
“Fortunately, a few thousand residents obtained shelter at the UNMIS compound. But the compound soon filled, and I heard many stories and accounts of people being killed at the gates of the UNMIS compound while U.N. soldiers stood by.”
Rev. Elnail likewise stated that there was “a need for effective peacekeeping forces with a real mandate to actually keep the peace, and not just stand by while mass murder occurs house-to-house, around the clock.”
In light of such violence, Rev. Elnail said, the United States must continue to employ diplomatic pressure and other forms of leverage against the Khartoum government.
“The United States cannot begin to consider normalizing ties with Sudan, and should not de-list Sudan as a sponsor of terrorism or approve this outlaw nation’s access to international financing and debt relief,” he told the subcommittee. “Those individuals and groups most responsible for the mass atrocities should be designated and sanctioned.”
Phillips went so far as to call for a “no-fly” zone over South Kordofan, “to stop the bombing campaign and allow humanitarian access so that relief flights back into the region may resume.”
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