By Josh Rogin

The Obama administration is getting close to nominating a new special envoy to Sudan, but a major Sudan advocacy organization is asking Secretary of State John Kerry not to nominate former U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney.

The advocacy group’s effort to squash the Carney nomination before it even exists is rare; NGOs usually wait until someone is nominated before they express public opposition. But in this case, Act for Sudan is hoping to head off the Carney pick before it materializes. Continue reading →

Rebel: Sudan Liberation Army fighter

Torched: Sudan village destroyed by fire - Getty Images

How he was: Interview with BBC in 2006

In touch: Using his mobile - photo by Phil Harris

Stroll: He goes for a walk in Birmingham - photo by Phil Harris

Smiling assassin: Ex-Sudanese Janjaweed fighter Mohamed Salim at home in Birmingham - photo by Phil Harris

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He does not need to report to police despite a confession he shot dead so many in his home country that he lost count

Chatting casually on his doorstep about supporting West Brom, his broad grin hides the sickening past of a war criminal.

Mohamed Salim’s identity can be unmasked today after the Mirror tracked him down to a leafy street in Birmingham where he lives off benefits.

He said he is not supervised by the authorities and does not report to police.

This is despite a confession that he shot dead so many civilians in his home country of Sudan that he lost count. Continue reading →

Will total war in Sudan ever cease?

BY JAMES VERINI | JANUARY 22, 2013

NUBA MOUNTAINS, Sudan — When Gen. Jagod Mukwar joined the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), soon after it formed, in the mid 1980s, he was a young man, and Sudan’s civil war was already many years older than he was. Factions from the north and south of the country had been fighting since before Sudan won its independence, in 1956. Still, the SPLA’s cause — independence for the south — remained internationally obscure. Sudan had not yet become a pariah state, while a famine in Ethiopia and apartheid in South Africa used up the world’s limited bandwidth for African tragedy. Mukwar’s cause-within-a-cause — the plight of the people of the Nuba Mountains, his home, in Sudan’s South Kordofan province — was unheard of. Continue reading →

Ms Sarah Nugdallah and Dr Mariam Alsadig Almahdi – Umma National Party

Khartoum – Abedalgoum Ashmeag

Sudanese authorities stopped senior National Umma Party officials from leaving the country to take part in a feminist peace forum in Ethiopia, on Friday.

The opposition party’s political secretary Sarah Naqdallah and fellow member Dr Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi said that the forum in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa was about encouraging peace between Sudan and South Sudan. Continue reading →

A young refugee just crossed into rebel controlled territory after surviving an ambush by Sudanese armed forces

Victim of Antonov bombing in Yabus town market suffering a shrapnel wound in the face

An exhausted young mother carrying her sick child

A tractor trailer loaded with the sick, young and weakest of the refugees fleeing Ingessena Hills

Shrapnel from Antonov bombardment of Yabus witnessed by author

Children playing despite conditions in refugee Camp. Maban County, South Sudan

Massive refugee camp in Maban County, South Sudan

Refugee camp in Maban County, South Sudan

Victim of an Antonov bombardment. His amputation caused by hot shrapnel

Destroyed and abandoned village in Blue Nile

An abandoned village in Blue Nile. Almost all those from this community are taking refuge in camps in South Sudan

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Chaos In Blue Nile State

Photos Courtesy Of Viktor Pesenti

Matthew Leriche

People in Sudan’s Blue Nile State face a stark choice: remain at home, suffering terrifying routine aerial bombardment and brutal counter-insurgency tactics or flee to the safety of camps in neighboring countries, enduring miserable living conditions with limited humanitarian assistance.

Recent refugee flows from Sudan into South Sudan indicate the crisis caused by internal conflict remains acute. As a part of its continuing military campaign in Blue Nile state, the Sudanese government has cut off the majority of the population from humanitarian assistance and the basics of life. The conflict may seem a sideshow to the better-known fighting in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state or in Darfur, but civilians in Blue Nile are suffering similar and related brutality. Continue reading →

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (wanted by the ICC) Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Sudanese officials have used information gathered by the regime’s agents in Britain to interrogate and torture British-based opposition activists on their return to the homeland, MPs have alleged.

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

09 Jan 2013

Badaoui Malik Badaoui, a Dafur refugee, was arrested at Khartoum airport in July last year to face questions about his attendance at demonstrations at Downing St and outside the Sudanese embassy in St James in 2010.

Over a period of nine days in detention, he suffered daily beatings after undergoing questions for shaming Darfur. Continue reading →

ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda

UNITED NATIONS — Sudan may face more charges for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Thursday.

Fatou Bensouda told the U.N. Security Council that crimes continue to be committed under Sudan’s “government-avowed goal of stopping the rebellion in Darfur.”

She said the incidents under investigation include bombings and bombardments, the blocking of distribution of humanitarian aid and “direct attacks on civilian populations.”

More than 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict since rebels took up arms against the central government nearly 10 years ago, accusing it of discrimination and neglect. Violence has tapered off, but clashes continue. Continue reading →

The New York Times - For Sudan, a seemingly never-ending series of problems

By ISMA’IL KUSHKUSH

KHARTOUM, Sudan — When the Sudanese government announced late last month that it had disrupted a “plot of sabotage” and had arrested 13 people, including senior members of the armed forces and the security services, it shed light on what was already an open secret: the growing discontent within its ranks.

Since South Sudan seceded last year, Sudan has faced a seemingly never-ending series of problems: a struggling economy and a 50 percent drop in the value of the Sudanese pound, dangerously unsettled issues with South Sudan, conflicts within its borders, concerns over the health of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and a bombing of a military factory that many believe was carried out by Israeli fighters.

The grumbling voices are many. But in addition to the expected challenges from marginalized groups and longstanding enemies of the government, there has been loud criticism from younger members of the Sudanese Islamic Movement, an organization that represents the Islamist core of the governing National Congress Party.

When the Islamic movement held its much-anticipated convention in mid-November, with thousands of attendees jamming the Chinese-built Friendship Hall here, reformers were eager to push their agenda of fighting corruption and expanding dialogue with the opposition. But when the movement elected a conservative, conciliatory figure as a new leader, frustration soared among the camp supporting change.

“We want total reform of the country!” said Mouiz Abdalla, 29, a lawyer who once belonged to a volunteer corps of college students who fought for Sudan in its civil war. Continue reading →

An unnamed man who was paid to slaughter civilians in Darfur will remain in the UK indefinitely because a British judge has ruled his life would be in danger if he returned to Sudan.

Photo: AP

Telegraph Reporters

An immigration tribunal found the 27-year-old was guilty of crimes against humanity after interviews given to the BBC and The Times described his looting of 30 villages and the shooting of “countless” victims. Continue reading →

Boys from the Kassab refugee camp collect water in Kutum, North Darfur. Photograph: Handout/REUTERS

Olivia Warham

The peace deal reached between Sudan and South Sudan will not resolve the bloody border conflicts plaguing the two countries

Close followers of African politics would be forgiven for experiencing deja vu upon hearing of the peace agreement between Sudan and South Sudan.

Aimed at providing a comprehensive solution to the full range of disputes that has repeatedly put the newly divorced countries at risk of war, the final treaty makes the same mistake as its unfortunately named predecessor – the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005. Until all the outstanding issues from these two agreements are resolved, the people of both countries can expect more of the same – ongoing conflict, ethnic cleansing and humanitarian disaster. Continue reading →

GREENWAY New South Wales federal Labor MP Michelle Rowland

GREENWAY federal Labor MP Michelle Rowland has put a motion to the parliament calling for more action to help people in the border regions of Sudan.

More than 2000 people in Blacktown are from the war-torn area, which has an extremely high child mortality rate. four times higher than emergency levels. Continue reading →

A Sudanese woman from the Nuba Mountains cradles her son in South Sudan wait outside the YIda refugee camp registration centre

Sarah El Masry

“The Sudanese who chose to come to Egypt had certain expectations that this country that had long historical and cultural bonds with Sudan would be a better refuge for them. The question remains, have their expectations been fulfilled?”

Hassan,* a political activist from Sudan told us his story and spoke of the living conditions Sudanese refugees face here in Egypt.

Where do you come from in Sudan?

Originally I am from the North of Sudan, Darfur specifically. I have been in Egypt since 2004. Throughout this period, living in Egypt has been tough, especially for foreigners and above all for refugees. It is hard to find work; this is generally one of the biggest problems refugees face. Many people in Egyptian society do not understand what a refugee is, why we as refugees are here, and why we left our country. Continue reading →

Part of the Square Kilometre Array, the world’s biggest radio telescope, being built in Northern Cape province, South Africa. Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images

Omar al-Bashir calls for co-operation on ‘biggest project’ after first stirrings of an African space race

David Smith, Africa correspondent

He would not be everyone’s first choice as an ambassador for Africa in outer space. The Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, is wanted by the international criminal court on charges of war crimes but had other matters in mind when he addressed a regional conference on Wednesday. Continue reading →

The raised and cratered village of ‘Amara, Sudan, photographed by satellite in November 2011. Photo: Satellite Sentinel Project

By Robert Beckhusen

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has issues with satellites. It’s not that he would mind some of his own, if Sudan suddenly developed a working space program. It’s rather those pesky foreign satellites snooping on Bashir’s war crimes and state-orchestrated genocide that he wants to get rid of.

On Wednesday, Bashir called on the African Union (AU) to find ways to “protect” the continent from spy satellites. The dictator urged the AU to “legislate protection of [Africa's] space,” as the state-owned Sudan Vision website reported, in tandem with developing a new unified space agency. “I’m calling for the biggest project, an African space agency,” Bashir said during remarks at a telecommunications conference in Khartoum. “Africa must have its space agency,” he added. Continue reading →

As you know, I went to South Sudan and Sudan over the past weekend with Reverend Franklin Graham and Samaritans Purse.

The President of Sudan, President Bashir, is under indictment for war crimes and genocide for atrocities he committed in the western part of his country (Darfur.)

Now he is bombing his own people in another part of his country, the Nuba Mountain area.

He denies it.

So… watch this video and tell me if he is telling the truth or not? Is this area bombed or are you imagining it?

By the way, it is a war crime to target civilians — targets like schools full of children. I am told these two bombs were dropped mid day but luckily missed the only target in the area — this school

Greta Van Susteren

Tensions have remained high since South Sudan formed its new state Photo: AP

Sudan’s army accused South Sudan of backing a rebel attack on the strategic town of Talodi on Friday, the eve of planned crisis talks between the two nations after earlier clashes caused global alarm.

“They came supported by tanks and cannons from South Sudan,” army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said in a statement issued by the official SUNA news agency.

Rebels said a battle was raging for the town in South Kordofan state, close to the disputed border with South Sudan, but they denied receiving Southern support and said the army’s claim gave Sudan an excuse for not going ahead with the talks expected to begin Saturday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Continue reading →

George Clooney on a visit to the Zamzam refugee camp in north Darfur in 2008. Photograph: Sherren Zorba/AP

Actor and activist funds a hi-tech project that is tracking troops and warning civilians of attacks

Paul Harris

Nathaniel Raymond is the first to admit that he has an unusual job description. “I count tanks from space for George Clooney,” said the tall, easygoing Massachusetts native as he sat in a conference room in front of a map of the Sudanese region of South Kordofan.

Close by, pins and ink scrawlings on the map detail the positions of Sudanese army forces and refugee populations in the troubled oil-producing province, where the Sudanese army is carrying out a brutal crackdown.

The wall next to Raymond has a series of satellite images projected on it. At the flick of a mouse, tiny images of tanks and military vehicles hove into view, caught by a satellite hundreds of miles above. Continue reading →