Mick Hartley

As the atrocities of Darfur fade from memory, and tens of thousands of refugees languish in the still-growing camps forgotten by all except the aid agencies, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir starts on a new round of ethnic cleansing. This time it's the Nuba, left stranded under the rule of Khartoum after the secession of South Sudan.

The Nuba have always been sympathetic to the South, and many of them now believe they've been sold out by the consultations leading to partition, which left them on the wrong side of the border:

The recent misfortunes of Nuba started in 2005 when John Garang, the long-time leader of the SPLA/M, died in a helicopter crash a few days after the war ended. His Mandela-style vision of a united "new Sudan", where Arabs and Africans would coexist under a new political leadership, was then substituted by the new SPLM leaders with a more achievable goal: the independence of the south.

But according to the 1956 Sudanese borders, on which the peace agreement is based, the Nuba mountains will fall under the control of the north. "When I read the conditions of the [peace deal], I thought the southern leadership had sold us off," said a local social worker, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

"When the SPLM/A was marred by internal division in the 90s, Nuba were the ones who supported Garang. Without us, the movement would have died and the south would have never been independent."

Instead of the referendum on independence given to southerners, the Nuba mountains were granted only ill-defined "popular consultation" to express their opinion on the peace deal. Six years later, no date has been set for the consultations. Many here believe the Khartoum government will never allow them to take place.

Nuba are divided between those who want complete independence, and those who still support the SPLM/A [the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army] as the best hope of freedom; but they are united in their determination to control their own destiny. "A wrong peace is worse than a war," said a Nuba SPLM MP, who asked for anonymity. "We would rather take our weapons again to achieve a just one, than settle for the current situation."

His opinion is shared by Mudier: "If the south does not help us, we will have to fight the northern regime to the last man," he said. "Maybe only our grandchildren will see that day."

Bashir made no secret of his plans for the new Sudan:  Islam would be the only religion, Sharia the only law, and Arabic the only official language. So war returns to a country where it never really went away:

The Sudanese government has vowed to crush the first "rebellion" within its redrawn borders, in South Kordofan, as the Arab-Islamic regime seeks to assert its authority over the truncated country, following the secession of the south.

But despite the army's relentless bombing campaign over the past six weeks, the insurgency shows no sign of weakening, with the SPLA claiming to control much of the ethnically divided state and the new recruits swelling its ranks.

Some are young, but many are older, like Abdullah, a middle-aged travel agent from Kadugli who volunteered after fleeing the heavy fighting in the state capital last month, along with 10 friends, four of whom were killed along the way.

"I lost so many in Kadugli. First, one of us was gunned down by a Dushka (anti-aircraft machine gun). Then, when we were carrying him, two more were killed by an aerial bomb. Another was killed on the way here," he says.

Others tell similar stories.

Aut Maliga was a farmer in the Nuba town of Kurchi, southeast of Kadugli, where five bombs were dropped on a market on 26 June.

"I joined the SPLA because I lost so many friends in the bombing, my best friends," he says.

Numerous local sources have confirmed that the air strikes on Kurchi destroyed the market and killed at least 16 civilians, including eight women and children. Another 32 people were hospitalised.

And now, this:

The full horror of the campaign of violence that the government in Khartoum has unleashed against the black African Nuba people of Sudan has been laid bare in two confidential reports by the UN peacekeeping force that the Observer has obtained.

The accounts of "devastating" daily aerial bombardment of civilians, "indiscriminate shelling" of crowded civilian areas, summary executions and deliberate targeting of dark-skinned people are contained in a 19-page report requested by the UN security council. A second report details how "active obstruction by state authorities (in South Kordofan) has completely undermined the ability of the peacekeeping force, UN Mission in Sudan (Unmis), to fulfil the most basic requirements of its mandate" in the Nuba region.

The report says the humanitarian assistance and protection provided by Unmis have become "inconsequential" as it prepares to leave Sudan, at Khartoum's insistence, by 31 July. Unmis officials say privately that they have been "deaf and blind" in South Kordofan ever since war broke out on 5 June and cannot even estimate how many people have been killed and displaced by the fighting – widely perceived as a first step towards President Omar al-Bashir's stated goal of suppressing ethnic and cultural diversity in favour of a rigid Arab-Islamic regime, following South Sudan's decision to separate from the North. 

Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity – a decision denounced by the African Union, rejected by Arab leaders who sent instead a "strong message of support" to the Sudanese president, and condemned by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference who called the indictment "unwarranted, totally unacceptable". So the bloodshed continues.