SPLM-N condemns Sudanese Air Force bombing of Nuba village school

At least 14 people, most of them children, were killed in an airstrike launched by an Antonov of the Sudanese Air Force on El Hadra village in the Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan, on Thursday. Three other places were also hit. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North under the leadership of Abdelaziz El Hilu (SPLM-N El Hilu) strongly condemned the attack.

The Sudanese Air Force mainly targeted Habila and the villages of El Hadra, El Kargal, and El Geniziya Moro in Dalami, a source living in the area reported to Radio Dabanga.

The losses were mainly concentrated in El Hadra, where two teachers, 11 students between 9 and 19 years old, and an unidentified person were killed.

The Antonov dropped four bombs that hit the water pumps area and the El Hadra village school, which explains the large number of children on the list of victims.

The air raids caused the displacement of about 100 families from the village, while no information was available about the situation in the other places.

The SPLM-N El Hilu issued a statement yesterday in which is strongly condemned the “aerial bombardment of the El Hadra school in the Nuba Mountains, killing 11 pupils and two teachers, [which] confirms the barbaric nature of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and its hostility towards Sudanese civilians”.

Following a list of the names of the teachers and children who were killed, and 45 others who were injured, the movement’s spokesperson Sanaa Philip stated that “We as SPLM-N condemn this cowardly and barbaric attack.”

She goes on to say that “First: If the SAF wants to go to war with the SPLMA/N, they know the locations of its camps and positions well. There is no reason for them to bomb a school with innocent children. [..]

“Second: This incident confirms that the SAF still retains its dirty combat doctrine, and its colonial nature since its establishment in 1925 by the colonial regime to suppress, oppress and kill the Sudanese people. [..] Third: The SAF should face armies instead of bombing innocent civilians. Such actions will be reciprocated by a decisive response at an appropriate time.

“The struggle continues, and victory is certain,” the statement concludes.

During the first and third decade of the Al Bashir regime (1989-2019) the people in the Nuba Mountains were regularly bombed by Antonovs of the Sudanese Air Force, which claimed to be fighting the SPLM combatants in the region. The regular aerial bombardments led Sudanese filmmaker Hajooj Kuka to make the documentary Beats of the Antonov.

The stronghold of the SPLN-N El Hilu is in Kauda, on the border with Heiban and Kalogi in South Kordofan. After war broke out between the SAF and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April last year, the SPLM-N launched attacks on army bases in the South Kordofan capital of Kadugli, the area of Dalami in July and August, and Kurmuk in the Blue Nile region. In December, rebel fighters clashed with RSF paramilitaries in the vicinity of Delling. 

It is not clear if the Sudanese Air force targeted the RSF or the SPLM-N by bombing the villages in Dalami on Thursday. Radio Dabanga reported last month that armed men reportedly affiliated with the SPLM-N El Hilu launched an attack on Habila and allegedly took control of the town that had been under RSF control of the since early January. 

On January 27, journalist Abdelrahim Kunda told Radio Dabanga from Dalami that rebel fighters had been attacking the town under SAF control for six continuous days. He said that people in the area were desperately searching for food after the agricultural season failed because of the SAF-RSF war.