ICC Note: Bombs continue to fall in Christian-majority regions of Sudan where, in a conflict between the Sidanese government and separatist rebels, the oppressive state has targeted civilian populations in order to displace locals. While the world continues to rightfully clamor about genocide in Darfur, the same is happening in the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan. The country’s Islamist authoritarian leader continues to notoriously oppose the Christian church. And one of the most monstrous ways that Omar al-Bashir continues to perpetrate this persecution is through intentional and incessant air raids and the employ of the janjaweed Islamist militia to terrorize predominantly Christian communities in the southern part of the country.

By Tom Rhodes and Musa John

NUBA MOUNTAINS, Sudan (FP) — “They surrounded us, killed kids and women, burnt the village. We waited until nightfall, and then we escaped to the mountains,” said Kawthar Ali Adelan, who sought refuge from a March offensive by Sudanese armed forces in a remote mountain cave. “We can’t go to get water because we still hear the shelling and see the planes flying around.”

The 25-year-old mother was wedged in a rock crevice with her cooking materials laid out before her. “The shrapnel finds us wherever we hide,” she said.

Assaults like the one on Adelan’s village, Alazrak, coupled with near-daily air bombardment by President Omar al-Bashir’s forces are the new normal in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. For five years now, the government has sought to defeat the rebel fighters who once fought alongside South Sudanese secessionists and now demand greater autonomy in their remote border region. Neither side has been able to gain the upper hand on the battlefield, resulting in a brutal, grinding conflict in which the rebel’s civilian communities are the ultimate victims.

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