"Dramatic" humanitarian situation

Several activists warned of a potential famine threat in the Nuba Mountains (South Kordofan). They revealed to Radio Dabanga that the authorities closed all the roads leading to SPLM-controlled areas, preventing both humanitarian and commercial convoys to access the zone. Mohamed Ali Tako, manager of the Talinq volunteer organisation, told Radio Dabanga that "women and children are climbing the mountains in an attempt to escape from the Air Force,” and furthermore explained that in Alhamra and Abu-Sugeifa, the stationed militias are committing massive human rights violations, including ethnically-targeted assassinations.

Bashir announced later his intention to exclude foreign humanitarian organisations from South Kordofan.

A victim of the Nuba Mountains aerial raids

Suspicions of ethnic killings and crimes against humanity

This allegation seems to be confirmed by the discovery of mass graves in the neighborhood of Kadugli by US-satellites in July 2011. According to witnesses,  bodies were removed from the market in Kadugli and from villages in the region, and dumped in these pits, not one kilometer from Tello village school. They furthermore said that Sudanese army troops and allied militias carried out “ethnic cleansing” in South Kordofan, allegedly targeting people of the Nuba tribes.

The United Nations released in August 2011 in an official report voicing its suspicions that the Sudanese government might have gone as far as committing crimes against humanity in South Kordofan. Reported violations included “extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and illegal detention, enforced disappearances, attacks against civilians, looting of civilian homes and destruction of property,” as well as massive displacement. The Sudanese government rejected the document as baseless and malicious.

For its part, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for the defense of human rights in South Kordofan, and pointed out the urgent need for an international presence on the ground in order to witness and stop the atrocities taking place in the region. "Tens of thousands of civilians in South Kordofan are in grave danger, and no one is on the ground to report on what is happening, much less do anything about it," HRW-Africa director Daniel Bekele said in a statement.

SPLM (North) chairman says ceasefire is just part of a scheme to launch massive attack on the region