But no sooner had the ink dried than the Sudanese regime reneged. It drew a curtain around SPLA-held areas of the Nuba Mountains, a remote region in central Sudan whose people resist Khartoum's totalitarian rule. Devastated by more than 14 years of civil war, the Nuba have received no official aid in a decade. The effects of the blockade are obvious. Many of the 300,000-400,000 Nuba in rebel areas are dressed in rags.
Food is scarce and signs of malnutrition are common among children.
Once-vibrant villages have become ghost towns. Their former inhabitants have fled marauding government soldiers. The tyranny of Sudan's Islamist regime has been copiously documented by the UN Commission on Human Rights. Reported violations against the Nuba include the razing of villages, the destruction of crops, the burning of churches and mosques, the abduction of thousands to virtual concentration camps, and the systematic rape of women. The conditions of chronic insecurity have led to engineered famine.