Sudan: South/Nuba Mountains

An estimated two million people, mostly civilians, died in Sudan and four million were displaced between 1985 and 2005 as the result of civil war. Primary responsibility for this devastation belonged to the Sudanese government, a military regime based in the north. The principal victims included the Dinka and Nuer peoples in southern Sudan and the Nuba of central Sudan. The Committee's warning was based on the following government actions:

A divide-to-destroy strategy of pitting ethnic groups against each other, with enormous loss of civilian life

The use of mass starvation as a weapon of destruction

Toleration of the enslavement of women and children by government-allied militias

The incessant bombing of hospitals, clinics, schools and other civilian and humanitarian targets

Disruption and destabilization of the communities of those who flee the war zones to other parts of Sudan

Widespread persecution on account of race, ethnicity and religion

Taken individually, each of these actions was a disaster for the victims. Taken together, they threatened the physical destruction of entire groups.