Suspected mass graves discovered in Sudan
Sudan activists have called for the international community to intervene in Sudan after a US group released satellite photos of what appear to be mass graves.
The Satellite Sentinel Project images show what appear to be freshly dug sites in South Kordofan state, where Sudan's Arab military has been targeting a black ethnic minority loyal to the military of the newly independent Republic of South Sudan.
A witness told the project, co-founded by Hollywood star George Clooney, that he saw 100 bodies or more put into one of the pits.
"The DigitalGlobe satellite images contain many of the details and hallmarks of the mass atrocities described by at least five eyewitnesses to the alleged killings," said Nathaniel A. Raymond, of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, which analyses the project's images.
Fighting broke out in the region on June 5. Neither the UN, outside aid groups nor journalists have access to the region, raising fears that more violence is being carried out than is known publicly.
Samuel Totten, a genocide scholar at the University of Arkansas, said that it is "imperative" that a team of investigators from The Hague-based International Criminal Court travel to the graves quickly to ascertain who the dead are in the graves, how many people were killed and in what manner.
"It is imperative member nations of the United Nations act now in a timely, efficient and effective manner to enter South Kordofan in order to ward off any more mass killings," Totten said. He urged the establishment of a no-fly zone.
A spokesman for Sudan's ruling party denied the project's allegations and said the area is accessible to observers, though aid groups say it is not.
"Even if there is any suspicion on such pictures, people can go there and visit the area and see what is the actual reality," said Rabie A. Atti, National Congress Party spokesman. "I think this is only rumours trying to, you know, blacken the people of our government."
