In Sudan war zone: Here today, gone tomorrow

The urgent call from Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service came out of the blue at around 10:00 am. Be at the airport in 30 minutes, a security agent told me.All I knew was that NISS wanted to bring journalists to South Kordofan state, where government forces and rebels have been fighting for three years, […]

The urgent call from Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service came out of the blue at around 10:00 am. Be at the airport in 30 minutes, a security agent told me.
All I knew was that NISS wanted to bring journalists to South Kordofan state, where government forces and rebels have been fighting for three years, and where access is normally tightly controlled.
The initial information was vague, but whatever the reason for the trip, this would be a rare chance to reach the war zone, and I, as AFP’s Sudanese correspondent, was the only one who could go. Westerners like AFP’s Khartoum bureau chief are regarded with suspicion by the security service, and are repeatedly denied permission to travel to sensitive regions.
Like the 11-year conflict in Sudan’s Darfur area, the fighting in South Kordofan, which borders South Sudan, has been fuelled by complaints among non-Arab groups of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated regime.
The United Nations says more than one million people in government-controlled parts of South Kordofan and another state, Blue Nile, have been affected by the war. But since the start of fighting in 2011 the UN has had no access to rebel-held zones and, as a result, has been unable to verify the impact on civilians there.
We suspected NISS’s invitation had something to do with their controversial Rapid Support Forces, which have been accused of burning villages and other abuses of civilians in Darfur.
Rapid Support was established several months ago mostly from among the Arab tribes of Darfur in Sudan’s west. Rapid Support-2, as the new sister unit is known, was raised from people of the Kordofan region and deployed there only last month, officials said.
After extensive criticism of Rapid Support’s activities in Darfur, its commanders were on a public relations offensive. Unlike army troops, Rapid Support is under the authority of NISS, a powerful organisation which has military units as well as plainclothes security agents.
 After rushing to the military airport in Khartoum, I waited. And waited.
Nothing is ever certain in Sudan, and another surprise is always around the corner.
By mid-afternoon word came that the trip was really on, but the transport turned out to be somewhat unconventional. We boarded a white, propeller-driven Antonov-32 cargo plane that carried no markings except for a Sudanese flag.
The lucky passengers, like me, got one of the handful of seats. The rest sat on the floor with a cargo of cardboard boxes. It was unclear what was inside.
About 90 minutes later the foreign crew of the Antonov landed their unusual cargo in the South Kordofan capital Kadugli, a town surrounded by mountains tinged green from the life-giving water of seasonal rains which have just begun.
Four HIND helicopter gunships were visible on the airport tarmac before we headed to a government guesthouse.
Kadugli has been periodically shelled by rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, but the only fire on this day was outgoing. Four barrages from government artillery and rockets, until 3:00 am, made for a sleepless night.

Another rough journey awaited us the following day. We climbed into the back of Rapid Support’s camouflaged pickup trucks, vehicles that serve as standard war-fighting machines in Sudan.
Sitting among ammunition boxes beneath mounted machine guns, we travelled on a dirt road through a forest of trees and brush where nobody except soldiers seemed to live. Troops from the Sudanese Armed Forces, the regular army, had built crude huts where they stayed near their tanks and other weapons.
Sudan’s military was on the offensive during a halt in peace talks which have yet to resume.
The convoy passed what appeared to be the remains of mud-brick homes which seemed to have been destroyed some time ago, and then it reached the Daldako encampment of Rapid Support, where more than 1,000 men were spread out across a three-kilometre (two-mile) zone with tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and recoil-less rifles.
In their first mission Rapid Support-2 “liberated” the Daldako region from SPLM-N on May 18 causing “heavy losses,” said a confident-sounding Hussein Jeber Al-Dar, the unit’s Daldako field commander, who welcomed us warmly and politely.

His men showed off a tank which they said they had seized, but the closest thing to any corpses visible were some abandoned rebel uniforms.
The SPLM-N took away their dead and wounded, Rapid Support troops said.
Except for several burned mud-brick houses, the Daldako area seemed untouched by battle damage.
Facing allegations of rape, looting and arson in Darfur – charges which Rapid Support denied – an analyst has said the unit is keen to present itself not as “vagabonds” but as regular forces.
Colonel Dar, a Kordofan native, seemed to represent the image they aspired to.
With a faint moustache and a green beret pulled down at a slight angle, he stood under a tree to brief us on the military significance of the Daldako operation.
Dar, who wore a NISS patch on his light-brown uniform, seemed to have a rapport with his men, infantrymen and higher-ranks alike. He didn’t mind chatting with journalists either.
“Will you come back and visit us again?” he asked me.
The usual restrictions placed on journalists visiting South Kordofan would make that difficult.
In any case, Dar won’t be there next time.
Less than a week after our meeting, the rebels counter-attacked and Dar was killed in battle.

Culled from AFP