Sudan air raids force women and children to run to the hills

Tens of thousands found living in caves to escape government bombing

The first sign of life comes from flashes of colour amid the giant boulders of the Jebel Tonguli. Light catches clothes hanging from trees that sprout between the rocks. Then faces start to appear on the mountainside.

Thousands of people are sheltering in the clefts and caves of the granite slopes of the Nuba Mountains, where Sudan's government claims it is fighting a counter-insurgency campaign against armed rebels.

Iqbal al-Nur perches on a wooden cot with a baby pressed to her breast in the shadow of an immense stone. "We took what we could carry and came here to escape the planes," she says, pointing to the sky where bombers have been launching an aerial assault across the mountains. "As long as the bombing continues, we will stay."

Ms Nur, who has four children, fled with the rest of her village to the safety of the mountains. She gave birth to Ambu, who is now one week old, under a rock soon after arriving. A friend who had a child three days later had to be taken hundreds of kilometres away to the nearest doctor after the infant fell ill. "I am scared Ambu is going to get sick here with the rain and wind," says Ms Nur, who admits she is also frightened of snakes. "I hate it here but we have no way out."

The towns and villages beneath the mountains are deserted. In Tonguli, a thatched roof is splayed on the cratered floor where it was thrown by the blast. A nearby hut has been reduced to a pile of blackened bricks. Others had their walls shredded by shrapnel. One man here was killed when a bomb ripped through his home as he slept last week.

The long civil war's end, which brought independence last week for South Sudan, has meant little in the Nuba Mountains, in one of the least developed areas in Africa.

Although many Nuba fought alongside the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which is now forming the world's newest government in Juba, the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan remain under the government of Khartoum and most people have seen little from the Arab-led central government to convince them to abandon their war-time allegiance to the rebels.

Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, gave a speech in Khartoum on Tuesday in which he welcomed the creation of the "Second Republic". In a flourish of rhetoric before the National Assembly, he affirmed his "commitment to the rule of law, the extension of justice, the propagation of a patriotic spirit [and] the guarantee of citizen rights". He said he would conduct "popular consultations" in South Kordofan. He has told people to return to their homes because the fighting was over.

But in the Tonguli mountains, Hussein al-Amin, the chief of a nearby village, reacts with rage at what was said: "We have no roads, no schools, no hospitals; this government gave us nothing. Now they bomb us and they keep bombing us even as we run away from our homes."

He says that refugees from the bombing campaign have come from all over the northern Nuba Mountains and more are arriving every day. Residents from two towns and at least seven villages are living among the rocks. He is concerned about disease and asks if people outside Sudan can "stop the bombing".

Like many of the displaced people, Moussa Zeber Ismail comes from the nearest big town, Dalami. The town has witnessed some of the worst fighting since clashes broke out in South Kordofan last month when government forces launched a campaign against Nuban rebels. The town initially fell to the rebels but has since been retaken by forces loyal to Khartoum.

"Everything has been destroyed, you can't find a school, a shop, a house, anything," Ismail, who is a farmer, says. "They sent Antonovs [bombers] during the day while the fighting was going on. They just threw bombs everywhere, hitting everything, everyone." The 54-year-old fled into the bush after seeing a friend sliced in half by shrapnel. "We hid for 18 days in the bush and then walked here. Up to now, I still don't know who has been killed and where everyone is," he says.

People are sharing what they have but most brought only small stocks of maize and sorghum; food will start to run out in days, Sheikh al-Amin says. Women are running the gauntlet of day-time raids as they walk miles to bring water from village wells. Local leaders estimate that at least 20,000 people have sheltered in the mountain range.

The spectacular serrated brown peaks that continue for miles to the east and west are now littered with the wreckage of people's lives. Beds and bicycles, cooking pots, rugs and prayer mats have been spread out among the megaliths. Goats rearing up on their hind legs have already stripped the nearest trees of leaves. Rainy season has started and night-time temperatures are dropping. Samira Mansoor hoists up nine-month-old Hamid to show his arms and legs that are covered with bites. "There are so many mosquitoes," she says. "We don't even have a plastic sheet."

Children learning to carve their names in Latin letters into a boulder scatter when an adult warns that an Antonov is coming. Laughing and yelling stop. The bomber remains unseen as the rumble of its engines traces a wide circle above the clouds.

This time it drops no bombs.