Submitted by Louise on
Summary: This briefing paper provides a background of the armed conflict in Sudan and its impact on children.
- Attacks on education
- Recruitment of child soldiers
- Killing and maiming of children
- The increase number of abductions and sexual assaults
Historical background
The young State of South Sudan has been plunged into a violent crisis since December 2013 amid a power struggle between the president and his deputy. The country gained independence from Sudan in July 2011 following a 2005 peace deal that ended Africa's longest-running civil war. Two rounds of north-south civil war have killed more than 2 million people.
Since Sudan gained its independence in 1956 at the end of the joint British Egyptian rule over the country, it has been ruled by a succession of unstable civilian and military governments. During the colonial rule, the Arabic Muslims in the north and Christians in the south were ruled as two distinct entities.The people in the south felt neglected while the north of the country was modernised. After the independence, Sudan was left heavily centralised and ruled by the North.
The conflict with Sudan
Shortly after Sudan's independence in 1956, unresolved constitutional tensions between North and South flared up into full-scale civil war. The conflict was temporarily settled in 1972 before it resumed and escalated in 1983 as the government introduced Sharia law. The conflict was led in the south by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its armed wing, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The conflict raged for two decades until the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in January 2005. The conflict is estimated to have cost more than two million lives with another four million displaced. The CPA also provided for a referendum on the independence of the South.
More than 98 per cent of South Sudanese voted to secede in the January 2011 referendum and to become Africa’s first new country since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993.
Disputes had raged with Sudan over oil issues and the three disputed areas of Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei. A referendum was settled in these areas to leave the decision of joining the north or south of Sudan up to the citizens. However, the referendum was delayed over voter eligibility. The conflict is rooted in a dispute over land between farmers of the pro-South Sudan Dinka Ngod people and cattle-herding Misseriya Arab tribesmen. The conflict in the South Kordofan border zone is between the largely Christian and pro-SPLA Nuba people and northern government forces.
South Sudan’s economy is highly oil-dependent. It is estimated that 75% of all former Sudan’s oil reserves are in South Sudan. Under the 2005 accord, South Sudan received 50% of the former united Sudan’s oil proceeds, which accounted for 98% of the country’s budget. But that agreement ended with the independence in 2011.
The internal conflict
The start of the conflict
Adding to this external conflict, internal disputes have also emerged when a power struggle between the president, Salva Kiir, and his Vice President, Riek Machar, started in 2013. They are both part of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) but they stem from different tribes: the President is an ethnic Dinka - the country’s largest group - and his Vice President is from the second largest community, the Nuer.
In 2012, the President declared that he managed to avoid a coup planned by some members of the SPLM. He then began to reorganise the senior leadership of his government, party and military. At the beginning of 2013, he replaced numerous staff members, explaining that they were potential rivals who would have provoked infighting as those occurring during the 1990s.
His last move was in July 2013, when he dismissed the Vice President, Riek Machar, his entire cabinet and decided to suspend the SPLM Secretary-General. The former Vice President claimed that Kiir’s move was a step towards dictatorship, accused him of corruption and announced that he would challenge him in the 2015 presidential election.
However, in 2014, Kiir announced that the next general elections will be pushed back until 2017 due to continued instability and violence in the country, pushing the country deeper into civil war.
The descent into civil war
What started as a power struggle between the President and the Vice President, who both have different views on how the country should manage its oil exploitation, moved to an ethnic civil war. South Sudan is highly diverse ethnically and linguistically; among the largest ethnic groups are the Dinka, Nuer and Shilluk. The fighting resumed as an ethnic struggle between the two largest communities.
Machar is supported by the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), known as the rebel group, whereas Kiir is backed up by the government army. Decades of conflict has left the country flooded with weapons. As a consequence, fighting between government troops and rebel factions has killed thousand of people. Reports of mass killings prompted millions of people to flee their homes.
An internationally-mediated peace agreement was signed in August 2015 but it remains extremely fragile. Few weeks after the signature of the agreement, both parties had already violated the ceasefire, despite pressure from International and national communities on both parties to implement the peace agreement.
Human rights violations
At least seven ceasefires had been drafted, agreed on and broken since the conflict started in December 2013. As of 2015, over 3 million civilians are internally displaced and over half a million live in refugee camps in the region and 730,000 people have fled into neighbouring countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan.
There was a large increase in the number of violations in 2014:
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617 children were recruited as soldiers
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580 children were killed
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220 children were injured
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36 children were sexually assaulted
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147 children were abducted
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and 11,000 children were denied access to education.
During the visit of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in 2014, the President of South Sudan committed to end violence against children and to take appropriate measures to respect their rights. However, such measures haven’t been put in place yet.
In her statement on the fourth anniversary of South Sudan’s independence, on 8 July 2015, Leila Zerrougui declared:
“Those violations are killing or maiming, recruitment or use of child soldiers, sexual violence, abduction, attacks against schools or hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access. In various fora, I and others concerned about the plight of children and other civilians in South Sudan have expressed our horror at some of the new atrocities that have come to our collective attention in recent weeks.” (Read the full statement)
Attacks on education
The main issue regarding education is the occupation of schools by armed forces. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), armed forces were occupying more than 35 schools in 2014, affecting access to education for approximately 11,000 children.
Seven incidents of attacks on schools were reported in 2014, including looting, and 60 incidents involving military use. This has also an impact on unoccupied schools, where children, parents and teachers do not feel safe and prefer not to attend classes or send their children to school.
Recruitment of child soldiers
Human Rights Watch raised concerns over deployed children on the front line of the armed conflict. This practice concerns both parties - government and opposition forces. Despite the signing of agreements with the UN to end the recruitment of children, only little progress can be seen.
The UN secretary-general’s report on children and armed conflict from mid-2015 stated that thousands of children were reportedly mobilised with one of the opposition forces, known as “White Army”.
The report lists that 81 incidents of recruitment and use of children were verified, affecting 617 children in 2014 (612 boys, five girls).
Killing and maiming of children
Between April 2014 and April 2015, 90 children were verified killed and 220 injured. There was also a disturbing increase in the incidents of killing and maiming of children reported to the UN that could not be verified. following heavy fighting at the start of the conflict around Bor, the bodies of 490 children were identified in mass graves.
The increase number of abductions and sexual assaults
The UN received reports of large-scale abductions, which were still on in April 2015 in large numbers: 34 incidents of abduction were verified affecting 147 children (52 boys, 95 girls) between April 2014 and April 2015.
Moreover, Human Rights Watch stated that rape and other forms of sexual violence were also reported, with a total of 22 incidents verified affecting 36 children in 2014 (4 boys and 32 girls).
The report released by UNMISS (UN Mission in South Sudan) suggests that armed groups from the opposition carried out a campaign of violence against the population of South Sudan's Unity state. According to testimonies from 115 victims, SPLA fighters abducted and sexually abused numerous women and girls, some of whom were reportedly burnt alive in their homes. The report states:
“This recent upsurge [in fighting] has not only been marked by allegations of killing, rape, abduction, looting, arson and displacement, but by a new brutality and intensity. The scope and level of cruelty that has characterized the reports suggests a depth of antipathy that exceeds political differences.”
Sources
Insight on conflict
http://www.insightonconflict.org/conflicts/sudan/conflict-profile/
http://www.insightonconflict.org/2014/02/civil-society-south-sudan-transitional-justice/
http://www.insightonconflict.org/2014/02/south-sudan-crisis-garangs-ghost-greed-power/
http://www.insightonconflict.org/2013/12/background-juba-crisis/
http://www.insightonconflict.org/2015/10/fragile-peace-south-sudan/
http://www.insightonconflict.org/2015/03/south-sudan-peace-talks-role-igad/
http://www.insightonconflict.org/2015/01/south-sudan-young-people-peace-state-building/
http://www.insightonconflict.org/conflicts/sudan/conflict-profile/
bbc articles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14069082
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25427965
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34571435
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33912156
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34075573
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18550314
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14069082
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25427965
Crisis group
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/horn-of-africa/south-sudan.aspx
Human Rights Watch
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/south-sudan
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/south-sudan
https://www.hrw.org/africa/south-sudan
UN
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51296#.VkCRYKFc-bl
Sudan tribune
http://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article53976
Updated on 18 November 2015