A recent investigation by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) and Sudan Witness exposes a devastating arson campaign taking place last month in the Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan State. For decades, the town of Kauda has stood as the defiant, symbolic heartland of the Nuba people and their resistance movement, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). But over two harrowing weeks from 2 to 16 May, a joint investigation reveals an arson campaign that burnt Kauda's central market and five surrounding rural settlements. The internal conflict within the Nuba community continues to this day, according to local sources.
According to the Sudan Doctors Network, violence last month killed at least 61 civilians, including women and children, who were targeted during clashes between the SPLM-N, led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu and the Ottoro tribe in Kauda. "Residents were entirely cut off from food and water," one displaced resident stated on social media. "People with disabilities and the sick were left behind in their houses... some burnt inside." On 8 May, the SPLM-N acknowledged in a statement that it had launched attacks in the Ottoro area to quell a localised mutiny linked to longstanding land disputes and border demarcation issues. Part of these disputes concerned the Ottoro's refusal to allow the SPLM-N-allied Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to mine in their area, local and international reports said.
