Story of unknown war screens on Al Jazeera

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Story of unknown war screens on Al Jazeera --

Tue, 21 Jan 2014 12:37

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Director John Dickie s 25-minute documentary, Eyes of Nuba, screens on Sunday 26 January at 20h00 GMT on Witness, Al Jazeeras flagship documentary strand.

Eyes of Nuba tells the story of Ahmed Khatir from Nuba Reports, a small group of self-taught journalists based in the Nuba Mountains on the border between Sudan and the newly formed South Sudan.

Khatir watched powerless as Sudanese soldiers burned his family s home when the war broke out in June 2011.

Instead of taking up arms to join the rebels, Khatir joined a group of citizen journalists determined to take notice of the situation.

At the start of the new century, the genocide in Darfur in Sudan and the atrocities committed there made headlines, says Dickie. Foreign governments and humanitarian organisations, prompted by global news reports filled with graphic images of death and mayhem, finally took action.

Dickie mentions that aid and outrage poured into the region and Sudan s president Omar al-Bashir subsequently became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court.

However, the tragedy of genocide had not been confined to just this one corner of Sudan. According to Dickie, in the neighbouring province of Southern Kordofan, and particularly in the Nuba Mountains, a similar catastrophe is currently underway and yet nobody seems to know about it.

In an effort to drive out the local population they suspect are in cahoots with the Sudan People s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N), Sudanese bombers randomly attack and burn villages.

Forced from their land, many now live in nearby caves on the brink of starvation.

But this is a forgotten war, says Dickie. The UN and most NGOs abandoned the region when the war began in 2011 as the Sudanese government could not or would not guarantee their safety.

Dickie adds, The Nuban population is essentially cut off from the rest of the world due to the remoteness of the region, the fact that journalists and NGOs are banned from entering the area, and cell phone and television coverage being cut off.

The situation has already escalated with the eruption of the new conflict in South Sudan since the documentary finished, says Dickie. Yida Refugee Camp is home to 70,000 Nubans, including Ahmed s family. It s in Unity State in South Sudan, which borders Sudan.

He continues: This has been a flashpoint region as rebels briefly took control of Bentiu, the state capital, which is around 100 kilometres from Yida. Fighting raged as government forces took back the town in early January, with reports of dead bodies lining access roads.

As a result, the UN and other NGOs have left Yida Refugee Camp, leaving Nuban refugees without relief services. Many are now returning to the Nuba Mountains. So an already horrific situation for them just got worse, concludes Dickie.

Visit http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/ for more information or www.nubareports.org for up-to-date coverage of the crisis.

Also view a recent report about a new parachute bomb tactic being deployed by the Sudan government at http://nubareports.org/on-the-ground-update- parachute-bombs-and-new-offensives/.

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