JUBA, Sudan (AP) — More than 100 orphans — the youngest only 1 month old — were trapped between fighting forces over the weekend when rebel troops battling Southern Sudan's army invaded an orphanage, officials said Monday.
None of the children or the orphanage workers were
harmed, but it appears that gunfire was exchanged while the children were
inside the facility, said Doris Kirchebner, a spokeswoman for SOS Children's
Villages International, the aid group that runs the children's home in the city
of Malakal.
Rebel fighters battling the south's Sudan Peoples'
Liberation Army, or SPLA, entered the facility Saturday, and the fighting began
while the children and staff were still inside, she said.
"We have heard that they entered one house and
occupied it and it was possible to move the children to another house,"
she said. "What we know is that the whole compound was surrounded by SPLA
soldiers. It was not possible for anyone to get in or get out."
Orphanage director Akwoch Dok said the children
have been caught in the middle of clashes before.
"It is not the first time," he said.
"When it happens, the children hide under the beds so the bullets pass
by."
An internal U.N. report said that several armed
militants took the children hostage. While mediation efforts were taking place,
the children were transferred to a hotel elsewhere in Malakal. The report said
that five attackers were reported killed inside the orphanage.
Dok said he thinks the fighters gained entry to the
compound through the kitchen, and that orphanage officials called the police to
report it. He said southern security forces ordered the children to evacuate
while the fighters were still inside the orphanage.
"It is not easy for (the children),"
Martha Choat, a minister in the Upper Nile state government said by phone from
the hotel in Malakal. "For the past two days they were sleeping with no
blankets and bedsheets."
The youngest orphan is only 1 month, she said. The
director of the orphanage went shopping Monday to buy water because "the
kids are having diarrhea, they are sick, they are drinking from the
river," she said.
The takeover of the orphanage came amid a spate of
fighting Saturday that saw 40 rebels and two SPLA soldiers killed, said army
spokesman Col. Philip Aguer.
Since its January independence referendum, Southern
Sudan has seen a wave of violence that has killed hundreds. The SPLA is
carrying out military operations in three counties of Jonglei state, and The
Associated Press, citing internal U.N. documents, reported last week that the
SPLA has made parts of three counties in Jonglei off-limits to the U.N.
The U.N. on Monday, though, called for
"unhindered" access to populations affected by fighting in Jonglei
and Upper Nile states. It said that many people affected by fighting remain
inaccessible.
Georg Charpentier, the U.N.'s humanitarian
coordinator in Sudan, said humanitarian agencies are negotiating with the SPLA
for access to the no-go zone, as well as for the setting up of humanitarian
corridors. The U.N. said two aid agencies have had to leave the area because of
the no-go zone declaration.
After a successful January independence vote that
northern Sudan said it would accept, there are clear signs that the security
situation in Southern Sudan is rapidly deteriorating.
The secretary-general of the main political party
in Southern Sudan, Pagan Amum, said Sunday that the south is suspending talks
and diplomatic contact with northern Sudan because of allegations that the
northern government is funding militias in the south. Amum said the north is
trying to "destabilize" Southern Sudan and is plotting to overthrow
the southern government before it declares independence on July 9.
On Monday, Amum leveled accusations against the
Khartoum government for the third day in a row, alleging that the northern
leadership is intent on destabilizing the south. Speaking to journalists and
diplomats, including two officials from the U.S. Embassy, Amum presented
documents in Arabic he said proved the north's intentions.
Amum said the documents were from 2009 to 2011 and
came from the northern ministries of defense and intelligence and from
officials in Khartoum's ruling National Congress Party and the Sudanese Armed
Forces. Amum's aides declined a request for copies of the documents, making it
impossible to independently verify Amum's claims.
The oil-rich south voted nearly unanimously to
secede from the north, but there are many issues that still remain unaddressed,
including the sharing of oil revenues, the status of southerner and northerner
minorities living on both sides of the border, and who controls the disputed
border region of Abyei, a fertile area near large oil fields.
Associated Press reporter Jason Straziuso reported
from Nairobi, Kenya.
Copyright
2011 The Associated Press.
(AP
Photo/Maggie Fick)
