More than 100 children who lost their parents in a massacre by Islamist militia in southern Sudan are living in the bush with the threat of being eaten by lions or dying from hunger, thirst or disease, according to a relief group working in the area.
 Lions feed on wildebeest (Born Free Foundation) |
Military forces led by the militant Khartoum regime, which has declared jihad on the mostly Christian and animist south, killed 59 unarmed villagers in a May 22 attack in Eastern Upper Nile province, said Seattle-based Servant’s Heart.
The toll now has risen to 62 deaths following the murder of three young boys captured during the attack, said the group’s director Dennis Bennett.
The slain boys included two sons of Presbyterian Pastor Jacob Manyiel, who was burned to death in his home by the attacking militia. Seven young girls and six women remain prisoners.
Manyiel’s wife, who was first reported as killed, survived the attack and is among the women held by government of Sudan forces.
The hostages, from Longochok and nine other villages, now reportedly are at the government of Sudan regional military headquarters next to the Adar Yel oilfields in Eastern Upper Nile.
Unless something is done soon to gain their release, the women will be forcibly “married” to Islamic military officers and forcibly converted to Islam, Bennett said.
Based on past experience, the children will be “sold” or “bartered” to government military officers or other wealthy Sudanese Arabs to be used as household slaves.
Bennett said 105 newly-orphaned children face a situation he’s witnessed before in Eastern Upper Nile province.
“Without adults to build houses and provide protection for them, the orphans are forced to sleep outside under the trees and in the bushes,” he said. “The local lion population finds these children quite tasty and far easier to capture and eat than animals which can quickly run away.”
Meanwhile, women who lost their husbands are without their primary food provider and house builder.
“The attack on this village destroyed all means for the surviving villagers to sustain life: their homes, their blankets and mosquito nets, their cooking pots, their farm tools, their cattle and grain, and, for many, their husbands,” Bennett said.
He noted the attack – which included the abduction of 16 women and children – took place on the day U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa. The leaders discussed steps toward Sudan’s removal from the U.S. list of terrorist states.
The State Department should have called attention to the attack and demanded immediate release of the prisoners, Bennett insists.
State said it has asked the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, established through the U.S.-brokered peace process, to investigate the allegations.
Ten CPMT investigators, led by retired Gen. Charles Bauman, visited the villages June 8 and saw evidence of the attack, according to Bennett.
Bennett said his group privately gave information about the abductees to the State Department June 9 but neither Secretary of State Colin Powell nor his spokesman Richard Boucher publicly called for their release.
“By their silence, Secretary Powell and the U.S. State Department are acquiescing in the continued captivity and possible murders of these surviving thirteen prisoners,” Bennett charged.
He believes the State Department is concerned about any incidents that might damage the peace process.
The attack violates the current cease-fire between Khartoum and the SPLA. It also breaches the agreement facilitated by former Sen. John Danforth, which forbids attacks against civilians and non-combatants.
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