_WORLD WATCH______________________________
______________________SUDAN____________________
New government attacks
Civilians, schools, churches are targets
Sudanese government aircraft bombed a marketplace in southern Sudan on November 20, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens, and inaugurating a new series of attacks on civilians in rebel-held areas.
At least one military plane dropped bombs on the market in Yei, the largest town in rebel-held zones in Sudan. “Our agents said the bombs fell at 2:45 pm (1145 GMT),” said Dan Eiffe, a spokesman for the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) group which has operations in south Sudan. “We heard the news by radio. Apparently the bombs landed smack in the middle of a marketplace. It is carnage.”
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army, based in the largely Christian south, has been fighting the Islamic government since 1983, in a brutal war that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead. Yei is the largest town in the rebel-held areas, and the Khartoum government has been accused of using air attacks on civilian targets to pressure the people to turn against the SPLA.
A week after the attack on Yei, Sudanese planes conducted another bombing raid on a Catholic school in southern Sudan, according to the Diocese of El Obeid and aid agencies. Eyewitnesses said the military aircraft began their bombing runs over the village of Panlit, dropping 14 anti-personnel munitions on the Panlit Missionary School where over 700 students were attending classes. At least one bomb directly hit the school, destroying two classrooms and sending hundreds of students fleeing. Diocesan sources said the exact casualty figures were not available; more than a week after the bombing, dozens of students were still not accounted for. School officials were hoping that at least some of the children may have fled to their native villages.
The Panlit Missionary School was founded by exiled Bishop Macram Max Gassis of El Obeid diocese in the late 1990s, to minister to Dinka women and children who had regained their freedom after having been abducted and enslaved by northern Sudanese raiders, and to serve the surrounding Dinka population, which includes thousands of war refugees. The attack on Panlit school marked the fourth time in nine months that Khartoum forces had targeted Bishop Gassis’s missions, and the second time that they had bombed one of his schools. Last February, Sudanese air force bombers attacked the diocese’s Holy Cross School in Kauda, killing 19 students and a teacher.
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