Armed groups are still mistreating people in southern Sudan, despite January’s peace agreement between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), a humanitarian group said on Monday.
”Even after the signature of the comprehensive peace agreement, civilians are subjected to excessive taxation when they enter and leave militia-held territory,” said Klaus Stieglitz, a commissioner for human rights at Sign of Hope, a German NGO.
While on a fact-finding trip to southern Sudan, Stieglitz said: ”The militia have used the civilian population as a source of personal aggrandisement. This taxation continues to place yet another hardship on a people who are struggling to rebuild their lives after suffering war and displacement.”
A Sudanese 40-year-old mother of seven told the NGO that ”when you go to Fom [a town in Upper Nile also known as New Fangak] to buy clothes or soap, they [militias] tax you as you return”.
”If you have no money they take your property,” she added.
Another Sign of Hope interviewee, John Kok, claimed that he was forced to pay militiamen 39 000 Sudanese pounds ($16) out the 80 000 Sudanese pounds ($32) he had received from the sale of bull in Fom market on February 14.
The three-person NGO team, headed by Stieglitz, documented cases of civilians, allegedly abducted by militias in 2001, being prevented from rejoining their families.
On Saturday, the Sign of Hope officials presented some of the allegations of mistreatment to the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT) in Rumbek, the designated capital of southern Sudan.
The United States-led CPMT is charged with monitoring and investigating attacks against civilians in the area.
Sign of Hope urged the Sudanese government, the SPLM/A and the international community to ensure implementation of the peace agreement, which calls for the cessation of activities by ”other armed groups”.
According to the NGO, such groups must choose to join either the government or the SPLM/A.
During their five-day trip to southern Sudan, the NGO representatives distributed humanitarian assistance to those in need in the regions of Upper Nile and northern Bahr el-Ghazal.
The group airlifted more than 5 000kg of school materials to Old Fangak, a town in Upper Nile state. The items included school books, pencils, blackboards, chalks and building materials such as timber and iron sheets. Another 4 300kg of relief items, mainly food and blankets, was given to people in the town of Gordhim, in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal
Sign of Hope is a German interdenominational organisation for human rights and humanitarian assistance.
The SPLM/A and the Sudanese government signed a peace agreement on January 9, ending 21 years of civil war in the region. The conflict is estimated to have left about two million people dead and more than four million others displaced. — Irin