Author: Web Desk

The Greater Pibor Administrative (GPAA) information minister has called on aid agencies to come to the aid of thousands of people who were displaced last weekend when an armed group from Ethiopia attacked the Nyat area of Jebel Boma County.

Minister Abraham Kelang told Radio Tamazuj Tuesday that calm had returned to the area but that the displaced people’s situation remains dire.

“At least 9 people were killed and 11 others injured when an armed group attacked the Nyat area on Saturday morning. The security situation is now calm after the attackers withdrew to the Ethiopian side of the border,” he said. “Up to now, no civilians have returned to Nyat because the entire village of 500 homes was burnt to ashes.”

“About 1,500 displaced households are currently in Jebel Boma town without food, shelter, and water so we are appealing for relief aid,” he added.

Kelang condemned the attack which he said was carried out by armed elements from Ethiopia’s Gambella region. He said diplomatic channels were being pursued to arrest the situation.

“On the side of the attackers, 14 were killed and they were wearing Ethiopian police uniforms,” he said. “As we speak, our chief administrator is in Juba to engage the national government on this matter.”

Meanwhile, John Koko Maze, the GPAA peace advisor, called on the national government to intervene and restore peace in the restive area. He however said that the details of Saturday’s incident remain scanty but acknowledged that the Nyat population was displaced to Jebel Boma town.

Radio Tamazuj was not able to reach the authorities in Ethiopia’s Gambella region or the Ethiopian Embassy in Juba for comment.

Source: Radio Tamazuj

The Secretary General of the Sudan People`s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party, Peter Lam Both, on Tuesday, returned to Juba after spending over a month in Germany where he had back surgery.

Lam was welcomed by a throng of party supporters, including the women and youth leagues, the Red Army, and senior party officials at the SPLM House in Juba.

Addressing the media after his arrival, Bol Makueng, the party’s external affairs secretary said Lam had been sick since his appointment as party secretary general in early December last year.

“As you may recall, he was confirmed as our SPLM secretary general and after that he was sick,” he said. “Even when he was working hard, he had that sickness and he has undergone an operation successfully and we praise God for his good health.”

Makueng did not divulge the details of Lam’s ailment although earlier Santo Malek Anei, the party’s acting spokesperson said the SPLM boss had minor back surgery.

According to the external affairs secretary, the return of the secretary general means the SPLM party can now operate at full capacity.

“Comrade Peter (Lam Both) is now welcome and our circuit of the SPLM Secretariat is now full,” Makueng said. “We are all together here and your party the SPLM will now fly with four engines, we are going to operate and we will succeed in all the programs of this country.”

In December last year, the National Liberation Council (NLC), the highest organ of the SPLM endorsed Peter Lam Both as the party’s secretary general after he served in an acting capacity since August 2021.

Source: Radio Tamazuj

The Pharmaceutical Professionals Association?(PPA) has strongly condemned the closure of medical supplier pharmacies in Khartoum, calling the move “a violation of the patient’s constitutional right to appropriate health care.”

El Shuhada and Military Hospital pharmacies in Omdurman have already been closed. Inventory work is being done in two other supplier pharmacies in Khartoum North and El Kalakla in south-west Khartoum in preparation for closure.

The pharmacists called the closure of the pharmacies “a crime” in a statement on Tuesday. They consider the move “a continuation of the systematic destruction of the legacy and goals of supplier pharmacies.”

The statement accused the government of closing these pharmacies in order to “make way for supply and demand mechanisms.” Since the ouster of President Omar Al Bashir in 2019, Sudan’s Minister of Finance Jibril Ibrahim has aimed to adopt liberalisation policies “until the economy recovers from the distortions it has long suffered from.”

Pharmacist Farid Abdelwahab told Radio Dabanga that the closure of pharmacies “is part of drying up the work of medical suppliers. This, along with lifting subsidies, only exacerbates the suffering of Sudanese people.”

People will no longer be able to access medicine at night, as supplier pharmacies are the only places that stay open, said Abdelwahab.

“Supplier pharmacies are the only source for a large number of life-saving medicines,” he said. Emergency pharmacies in hospitals do not have large stocks of some medicines, meaning that hospitals will also struggle to provide the medication that people need.

Made in Sudan

After the Ministry of Health announced plans to liberalise pharmaceutical prices on November 20, the Professional Pharmacists Association warned that the decision will double the price of medicines and reduce access to medical supplies for many Sudanese.

According to Mohamed Jamal, representative of the Khartoum Pharmacists Committee, local manufacturing covered 30 per cent of the country’s need for medicine in July 2020.

However, 20 per cent of the Sudanese medicine industry is losing money, because of the import of raw materials in foreign currency that must be bought on the parallel market, the increased costs of production due to the lack of electricity and the use of expensive diesel they are forced to buy from private dealers, along with the increase in salaries in the country.

Source: Radio Dabanga

“Sit-ins and other forms of community protests, such as blockades of national highways and stoppage of pumping to Sudan’s oil refinery, have become a common, and increasingly frequent, feature of civic opposition” to Sudan’s gold mining sector, reported Dr Suliman Baldo on Monday.

In a Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker (STPT) report tracing recent protests against “the capture of local resources by a powerful and kleptocratic central state and its commercial partners,” the respected Sudan conflict resolution analyst called for a “reform-minded, civilian-led government” which can aid grassroots efforts to divest from harmful gold mining practices in Sudan.

The STPT attempts to encourage informed policy decisions both in Sudan and internationally on approaches to bring about stability and sustainable peace in the country. This report, Community Protests in Sudan’s Gold Mining Sector: Peaceful Resistance and Repressive Responses, argues that “it will take more than sporadic eruptions of grassroots resistance to put an end to Sudan’s kleptocratic capture of natural resources.”

“Demands for government investment in the revival of collapsed public health and education sectors, and the provision of other services, such as regular clean water supply and electric power,” are central demands of the protestors, Baldo said.

Akasha and Dordeib

In Akasha village in Halfa, Northern State, pollution, an increase in petty crimes, and the accumulation of plastic waste in the area have caused friction between the miners and the villagers. Residents have been protesting against the environmental damage caused by the mine for years.

Villagers complain about “widespread environmental damage” as a result of the use of toxins in gold mining activities.

Khatmi Hasan, an environmental activist in the area, told Radio Dabanga this week that Akasha has a mining market about a kilometre north of the village. “Two companies, Nugud and El Bashayer, that process mining waste containing mercury and cyanide temporarily store this waste [called karta in Sudan] at the market,” he explained.

“This market is located in a seasonal streambed [called khor] that flows onto farmland and into the Nile. This poses a danger to the villagers during the rainy season when there is flooding.”

He and other activists have called on the authorities “to move the market to another place and to spare the villagers the danger of pollution and security threats.”

Activists in Dordeib, Red Sea state, warned of “an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe” in the area on Monday.

The activists have given the authorities one week to remove a cyanide-using gold mining plant in the area of the 45th Infantry Brigade. The Red Sea state Security Committee also called for the removal of the company.

The Dordeib Protest Committee said in a press statement that the gold processing plant is located near urban areas and the main channel of Khor Dordeib which feeds agricultural and grazing areas.

Gold extraction through chemical treatment with materials containing cyanide is causing an environmental disaster in Red Sea state, the local Demanding Bodies Association reported on November 25.

Mining companies

In September 2019, Director of Exploration of the Sudanese Mining Resources Company Naji Mahmoud claimed that there are 424 mining companies in Sudan that are owned by members of the ousted Al Bashir regime.

He said that 48 foreign companies operate in the sector, including Russian, Turkish and Chinese plants. He cited investment constraints because of influential former regime brokers. The director also claimed that certain security services finance themselves through the mining sector.

The vision of the local communities was realised in the first mining conference in December 2019. Solutions were based “on the fact that local problems are linked to the overall vision and the treatment lies in a change in policies and management structures.”

The main outcome of the conference was that the government should give the right of environmental oversight to local communities. “Due largely to the instability in Sudan, the government did not endorse and implement the vision of these demand groups,” noted Baldo.

Health risks

Environmentalists have been warning of the health and environmental hazards of the use of toxic mercury and cyanide to extract gold from ore for years.

A recent report on mercury poisoning in Sudan points out that “years of indiscriminate use of dangerous chemicals such as mercury, cyanide, and thiourea without protective measures for miners or local populations has exposed millions of citizens across Sudan to lethal risks”.

The Sudan Democracy First Group also highlighted the human and environmental costs of traditional gold mining in the region in a report published in November 2018.

In January 2018, a medical team led by the Health Minister of gold-rich South Kordofan investigated the increase in miscarriages, the birth of deformed children, and cases of kidney failure in El Tadamon.

At the same time, Northern State education authorities decided to close the Sawarda school complex in response to cases of coughing, vomiting, and shortness of breath among students. The situation was attributed to the poor environmental and health conditions due to activities of the International Company for Mining, which spread mining waste and dust in the area.

Source: Radio Dabanga