The government of Sudan has bombed St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Primary School in Kauda, in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, near its own border with South Sudan, according to local reports.
Bishop Macram Max Gassis of the local diocese condemned the attack, which reportedly occurred during the afternoon of 25 May.
Separately, rebel sources said government warplanes dropped barrel bombs on the Heiban area on 1 May, killing six children from one family.
Expressing its concern at “indiscriminate aerial bombardment”, the Diocese of El Obeid said teachers had earlier heard and counted “15 bombs being dropped within the school’s vicinity” on 18 May, before a jet fired a missile at the edge of the school’s teacher-training compound a week later.
The US, UK and Norway condemned the bombardment of civilians in the Kauda and Heiban areas of South Kordofan, including the bombing of the school.
Lying near the borders of the now-independent South Sudan, the mainly Christian people of the Nuba Mountains have long resisted Khartoum’s Arab and Islamist rule, but were denied a meaningful self-determination vote when the South split away in 2011.
