1.9 Million Dead in 15-Year Sudan War, Agency Reports

At least 1.9 million civilians in southern Sudan have perished in a 15-year ethnic and religious war that has become the deadliest conflict since World War II, the U.S. Committee for Refugees reported Thursday.

“This is greater than the combined toll of civilian deaths in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and a number of other places . . . but the international community seems not to be interested,” said Roger Winter, director of the privately funded aid agency.

He said the agency’s estimate is conservative and the actual civilian fatality count could be far higher. In comparison, about 1 million civilians were killed in the Vietnam War, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The report said the number of actual combatants killed in the war between the Muslim-dominated government and a rebel movement based in the south, home to mostly Christians and those who practice indigenous religions, is in the “tens of thousands,” a small fraction of the number of civilians who died as a direct result of “intentional policies of the Sudan government.”

The report updates an estimate issued by the committee in 1993. Since that report, an additional 600,000 civilians have died as a result of war-related violence, famine and disease, the agency said. The toll for the first six months of this year was put at 70,000. The total population of southern and central Sudan is about 5 million now.

The organization did not estimate civilian casualties in the largely Arab northern provinces, which are the government’s stronghold. But the number is far smaller because the war has been confined mostly to the southern and central regions, which are composed mainly of black Africans.

Winter said many of the casualties were caused by government bombings that terrorize civilians but “seem to have no military purpose.” He said a civilian hospital was bombed last month just hours after he and five other committee staffers visited it. The raid destroyed facilities recently rebuilt by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Jeff Drumtra, the committee’s Africa policy analyst, said the war-caused famine has eased slightly because of massive food aid from a U.N.-sponsored program, a small but significant harvest and rainy weather that has made fighting difficult. But he said the respite is sure to end in the next three months, when food from the harvest is gone and the rain ends. He said the food program lacks funds to continue at its present pace.

Drumtra said the government regularly interrupts delivery of food and other supplies by withdrawing clearance for aid flights.

“After all these deaths, it is time to change the rules,” he said, urging the U.N. to declare southern Sudan a “humanitarian zone” in which the government air traffic rules would not apply. He said such zones have been established in Iraq, among other places. The report estimated that 4 million Sudanese are displaced, most of them seeking refuge in the country, although 350,000 are refugees in other countries.

“The government has been relatively successful in sealing off much of Sudan from the prying eyes of journalists, aid agencies and social scientists,” the report said.