Persecution in Sudan

July 13, 2004 WorldNetDaily

UPPER NILE – Sudan-Persecution Project Foundation announced today the release of new photo and video documentary evidence of atrocities against civilians in southern Sudan's oil region.

During its June Sudan relief mission co-sponsored by The Voice of the Martyrs in Bartlesville, Okla., a team led by Persecution Project Foundation president Brad Phillips encountered more than 700 Shilluk survivors of a recent government-sponsored massacre in the remote village of Payuer in Northern Upper Nile - Sudan.

Reports had leaked out of RenkCounty in the nation's oil region that, from March 26, 2004, through until the second week of April 2004, 22 Shilluk villages had been burned and hundreds of people murdered while Government of Sudan (GoS) troops looked on.

"They did more than look on," said Phillips. "Survivors told us that GoS soldiers in motorboats had fired on them from the Nile while government-sponsored militia attacked from the bush. We received testimonies that between 300 and 1,000 people were killed during these attacks. More died afterward from wounds and disease. Hundreds were abducted. Twenty thousand people were driven out of their homes, their villages burned. At the beginning of June, 700 Shilluks who had fled these attacks reached our distribution site in Payuer, where more than 85,000 internally displaced Christians have taken refuge this year. We knew the situation was desperate when we arrived, because we found the people eating 'apam' [leaves from the Acacia trees]," Phillips said.