U.S., Canada 'Appalled' at Sudan Aerial Bombing near Hospital
The United States and Canada said Thursday they were "appalled" by an air raid which Sudanese forces reportedly carried out near a church-run hospital in war-torn South Kordofan.
"We strongly condemn any targeting of civilians, and are appalled by this attack on those providing essential medical care or humanitarian assistance to people in need," embassies of the two North American nations said in a joint statement.
"International humanitarian law obligates all parties to a conflict to distinguish civilians from combatants."
The statement said a number of bombs were reportedly dropped by Sudan's air force near the Mother of Mercy Catholic Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state on May 1-2.
Some people were injured while patients and staff were terrified, it said.
Sudan's armed forces spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad told AFP the incident did not occur.
"We didn't bombard any hospital or target any civilians," he said.
On Monday, a former Catholic bishop for the area, Macram Max Gassis, accused Sudan of "deliberate targeting and bombing" of the church-run medical facility which serves more than 150,000 people a year.
It is the only hospital in the Nuba Mountains.
Nuba Reports, a website based in South Kordofan, said nobody was killed in an initial bombing run by a Sukhoi jet that sent hundreds of patients and visitors fleeing.
It said the blasts shattered windows in the home of the hospital's medical director.
The next day, bombs from an Antonov aircraft landed on a mountaintop, Nuba Reports said.
"This latest event only heightens our concerns about the protection of civilians in South Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Darfur, where Sudanese Armed Forces continue indiscriminate aerial bombardments of civilians and civilian areas," the U.S.-Canada statement said.
Almost three years of fighting between the government and Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states has displaced or severely affected more than one million people, the United Nations says.
Aid agencies have had no access into SPLM-N areas from within Sudan since 2011.
The alleged bombing occurred on the same day African Union-led peace talks between the government and rebels were suspended, tentatively to resume later in May.
Like the 11-year-old war in Sudan's western Darfur region, the Kordofan-Blue Nile conflict has been fueled by complaints among non-Arab groups of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated regime.
Last November 29, 14 civilians were killed in an air strike on their vehicles outside Tabit, North Darfur, a U.N. panel of experts reported in February.
Investigation by the panel found it was "almost certain" a Sudanese Su-25 aircraft carried out the attack with S-8DM 80 millimeter rockets.
Use of such aircraft and rockets in Darfur was almost certainly a breach of U.N. sanctions, the panel said.
At the time, Sudan's military said no aircraft had been used in the Tabit area.
President Omar al-Bashir and Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein are both wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
Source: Agence France Presse
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