Produced in collaboration with PBS Newshour.
Maowia Khalid, Sudan’s Ambassador to the US, watched Nuba Reports video footage of the bombing campaigns his government is accused of conducting on civilians in the Nuba Mountains.
Khalid shook his head and handed the iPad back. “We cannot determine where those photos are,” he said. “They probably could be inside the barracks and the camps of the rebel groups. They could be. And they could be also not in Sudan. They could be in South Sudan or any other area.”
Nuba Reports footage was used as evidence of the three year aerial assault on civilian targets for this PBS NewsHour segment. The report examines the bombings of the only hospital in South Kordofan, the attacks on the Medicine Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) compound, and tells the personal story of a woman whose life was devastated by bombings on her home and then the hospital where she was recovering
Sudan’s government rarely replies to accusations that they target civilians in Blue Nile, Darfur, and South Kordofan although hundreds of attacks have been documented by human rights groups.
In the report Khalid admitted that the government uses parachute bombs and cluster bombs. He blamed international sanctions, saying his army is forced to use these weapons. “We’re combating very aggressive rebellion,” he explained “And, unfortunately, Sudan is using a very old technology in its armed forces, and that is due to many things, part of it the sanctions that have been applied to Sudan.”
Meanwhile Nuba Reports continues documenting the bombings inside the Nuba mountains. Dozen of bombs were recently dropped on the political capital Kauda, including several cluster bombs. It was the third time cluster munitions were used, however, the bombs did not explode. Sudan is one of 22 countries, including Syria and Yemen, which has used cluster bombs since the end of World War II. In the same bombardment an infant was killed in the arms of her mother and a school was narrowly missed.
Watch the film above, or see the full report and transcript on PBS.
