Justice Africa unequivocally condemns the aerial bombardment of the town of Shigeg Karo in North Darfur on 4 May. There is no conceivable military justification for this assault on innocent civilians in Darfur. It is the worst documented single incident of civilian fatalities from aerial bombardment in recent years.

At 2pm on Sunday, a single Antonov bomber targeted Shigeg Karo, destroying the market and hitting the village school. The attack killed at least 12 people, including six school children (others are in critical condition). Thirty more were wounded.

The Darfur conflict, which escalated to large-scale violence in 2003, has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, mainly civilians. Fighting has been mainly between the Government of Sudan who has used Arab groups as proxies for the war, and rebel militia. Although a peace agreement has been signed, peace in Darfur remains elusive.

The attack is in flagrant violation of the prohibition on hostile military flights agreed by the Government of Sudan in the N’djamena Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement of 8 April 2004 and the Darfur Peace Agreement of 5 May 2006.

Justice Africa is also dismayed at the slow response of the international community including UNAMID and the ICRC in providing emergency assistance to the surviving victims of the attack, beyond any delays attributable to the Sudan government’s obstruction, and calls for them to immediately rectify this inaction to assist victims of the bombardment.

Justice Africa calls on the Government of Sudan and all parties to the conflict, to abide by international humanitarian laws, obligations to protect civilians and their commitments to prohibit hostile military flights in Darfur. Justice Africa also calls on the Government of Sudan to commence a full investigation into this incident and to take immediate action to facilitate assistance to the victims.

For more information on the bombardment of Shigeg Karo and the response in assistance to the victims, read the latest entry from ‘Making Sense of Darfur’.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 11:15 am and is filed under Justice Africa News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.