Field Report

While the U.N. declared the famine in Somalia over in February, a third of the country's population still faces a food crisis. The Enough Project reports from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, where famine conditions were the greatest and most persistent.

Enough has recently documented that Sudanese military forces in Blue Nile state have engaged in the killing and raping of civilians, resulting in tens of thousands of refugees and displaced persons fleeing for safety in neighboring Ethiopia and South Sudan, and within Blue Nile. On a trip to a location near Kurmuk in Blue Nile close to the Ethiopian border, Enough Project staff spoke to Blue Nile’s elected governor, Malik Agar, about the current situation and his aspirations for Sudan’s future.

With the Congolese elections just three weeks away Enough Project researcher in Goma, Fidel Bafilemba, considers President Kabila’s tenure and what the future may hold for the Congo.

After a trip to the Ethiopian border, Enough Project researchers Amanda Hsiao and Omer Ismail report that Sudanese government forces and militias are killing and raping civilians in Blue Nile state, according to refugees who recently fled the fighting.

Over 70,000 people are estimated to have been displaced in clashes between Sudanese Armed Forces, and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army-North  in South Kordafan. Yida village is in the northernmost part of Unity State in South Sudan, around 11km from the border with the north, and is now home to around 10,000 people displaced from South Kordofan, but the displaced may need to move again.

Within its first month of independence, South Sudan was named  among the top five countries in the world where terrorist attacks are most likely to occur. Further attempts toward destabilization by militias are therefore imminent and are, in fact, likely still happening in the field.

Violence is on the rise in eastern Congo, with attacks by the Rwandan FDLR rebel group increasing in recent months. Civil society representatives here in eastern Congo’s North and South Kivu provinces have continuously watched as the long-feared FDLR militia keeps a stranglehold on their villages, committing atrocities to hold their unwilling host communities subdued.

Born out of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in eastern Congo, a group of prominent civil society organizations recently formed a coalition to address the linkage between natural resource exploitation and human rights abuses in the region.

The town of Malakal, Upper Nile State, South Sudan, is under siege. An increased Sudan People’s Liberation Army security presence is illustrative of the weaknesses of the government approach to dealing with militias, as well as the concerns of its citizenry.

As South Sudan edges toward independence in July 2011, Abyei remains a critical flashpoint for conflict, as demonstrated by the recent intentional burning of villages by forces reportedly aligned with the northern government, and the displacement of 20,000 residents.