UNITED NATIONS - An unpublished report from the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Sudan gives details of violence that has erupted in an important border state, including widespread aerial bombardments that kill civilians,executions, possible mass graves and attacks on churches.
The report emerged as the newly minted Republic of South Sudan, which officially seceded from the northern part of the country on July 9, was admitted to the United Nations on Thursday. Its designated ambassador, Ezekiel Gatkuoth, broke out a few jubilant dance moves as the new country's striped flag, with its distinctive yellow star, rose alongside those of the other 192 member states.
In speeches, representatives from both Sudan and South Sudan pledged to work peacefully to untangle the remaining complex issues, including demarcating the border between them, sharing oil and determining citizenship.
"We and our brothers in South Sudan have left bitterness and the wounds of war behind us and we're looking forward to the future," Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, the Sudanese envoy to the United Nations, told the General Assembly.
Yet the United Nations report suggests that in its effort to stamp out any lingering rebellion in the state, South Kordofan, which borders South Sudan but will remain entirely in the territory of Sudan, the northern government based in Khartoum has carried out widespread human rights violations that could amount to war crimes.
Much of the violence is focused on the Nuba people, a mostly Christian minority that fought alongside the south during many of the decades of its 50-year independence struggle.
In Sudan itself, officials have made no bones about stamping out the remnants of any rebel forces, but they say they are attacking only rebels, not civilians. Peace talks being conducted by the African Union fell apart last week.
The report, prepared by the human rights section of the peacekeeping force, said there were credible accounts of people in South Kordofan affiliated with the rebel movement being executed. In addition, a peacekeeping staff member detained by the Sudanese armed forces at a military facility said that he saw 150 bodies scattered around the grounds and that he was told by a soldier that they had been shot dead.
In late June, a contractor working for the United Nations witnessed Sudanese army soldiers filling a grave with bodies and covering it with a bulldozer. The Sudanese Army, paramilitary forces and government security forces have also attacked the United Nations force itself, the report said, including the summary execution of a Sudanese staff member.
The report, which was requested by the Security Council, recommends an independent investigation into human rights violations, including a possible referral to the International Criminal Court. The governor of the state, Ahmed Haroun, has been indicted by the court for previous violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
"While the United Nations is celebrating the admission of South Sudan as a new member, Khartoum is still ruthlessly bombing civilians in South Kordofan," said Philippe Bolopion, the United Nations director for Human Rights Watch.
Security Council members have expressed concern about the potential for the violence to disrupt a peaceful transition to creating two nations out of Sudan, particularly since Khartoum demanded that the peacekeeping force cease operations in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, another state, as of July 10.
Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador, told the council on Wednesday that fighting between the Sudanese Army and opposition forces has displaced more than 70,000 people in South Kordofan. "The violence, the human rights abuses and the deliberate obstruction of access for humanitarian agencies must end," she said.
Michel Bonnardeaux, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping operations, said the forces there have not been able to fully assess the situation because their movements have been restricted for a month. "Basically they are saying 'butt out,' " he said, noting the potential for a humanitarian crisis if civilians and nongovernment organizations are not protected.
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