Conflict in the Nuba Mountains border region of South Kordofan, Sudan, has forced thousands of families to flee their homes and seek shelter in the rocky folds of the mountains where they are surviving off of leaves and roots with no food aid in sight.
Displaced Nubans speak of the struggle with Sudan Armed Forces to keep their families alive.
"They come and kill the children, hit us with bombs," Marriam Teia, whose husband was killed in the fighting. "They leave us without water to make food for the children. Nothing to be given to the elderly mother and father. It is so painful."
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Ryan Boyette
As fighting increases between the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North and Sudan Armed Forces, and the Sudan government continues scorched-earth tactics across South Kordofan, citizens are forced into hiding abandoning farms, livestock and goods.
Their new home offers little: foul water, no crops, and diminishing hope.
Abdu Rhaman said three of his five children died of hunger.
Fact Box
Editor's note: Ryan Boyette, formerly of Boca Grande, continues to monitor to civil war in Sudan at great personal peril. He sends information as he is able. The Gasparilla Gazette is publishing all communication from Boyette. Nuba Reports' new video, "A Hidden Hunger: Life in the Caves of the Nuba Mountains," exposes a population on the verge of starvation.
"No one was sick," he said. "They were just hungry."
The Sudan government denies it blocks aid to SPLA-N controlled areas of South Kordofan. But Amor Almagro, spokesperson for the World Food Programme. told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that "access has not been granted for us to carry out an assessment and deliver much needed food assistance"
The Sudan government continues to inflict starvation as a method of warfare. Since the August signing of the Tripartite Humanitarian Agreement, which promised the flow of food aid into South Kordofan and Blue Nile state, hungry populations have waited in vain.
An assessment team found 81.5 percent of households in South Kordofan are surviving on one meal per day - up from none two years prior, according to the survey published by Enough Project. The Sudanese government has banned humanitarian access to the region.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates the number of affected people in South Kordofan and Blue Nile at more than 900,000. Malnutrition among children is soaring and families are forced to choose between the security of the caves, starvation or make the dangerous journey to a refugee camp in Yida, South Sudan. More than 65,000 people have already made the trek so food shortages, overcrowding and disease in Yida have soared.
Teia pointed to a bag of grain near the doorway of her home, a small inlet in the caves of the Nuba mountains.
"This is the last sack for the kids," she said. "When it runs out, there will be nothing left."
Editor's note: Ryan Boyette, formerly of Boca Grande, continues to monitor to civil war in Sudan at great personal peril. He sends information as he is able. The Gasparilla Gazette is publishing all communication from Boyette. Nuba Reports' new video, "A Hidden Hunger: Life in the Caves of the Nuba Mountains," exposes a population on the verge of starvation.
