Methodology

The report is based on five separate fact-finding missions to Sudan and South Sudan, each lasting about ten days, in August 2011, April 2012, and October 2012. Human Rights Watch visited villages and displaced communities in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states, and also refugee camps in Unity and Upper Nile states in South Sudan. Through interviews, site visits, and examination of physical evidence, Human Rights Watch documented various human rights violations committed during the armed conflict in both states, and assessed the impact of Sudan’s humanitarian blockade on the civilian population. 

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 120 refugees and displaced persons in Southern Kordofan, Sudan, and in Unity, South Sudan. Researchers also interviewed more than 75 refugees and displaced persons in Blue Nile, Sudan, and Upper Nile, South Sudan.  Interviews were conducted mainly in Arabic, but also in local languages through local translators. They were conducted both privately and in groups, in towns, villages, remotes settlements in rural areas, and in refugee camps in South Sudan.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed representatives of UN agencies and international nongovernmental organizations and religious organizations, Sudanese civil society activists and human rights monitors, local community leaders, and officials from the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North and Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North.  We informed all persons interviewed of the purpose of the interview, its voluntary nature, and the ways in which data would be collected and used. The names and other identifying information of some of our interlocutors have been withheld in order to protect their personal security.

While no officials from the Sudanese government were interviewed due to Human Rights Watch’s lack of access to government controlled areas, the report takes note of Sudan’s response to the August 30, 2011, joint press release by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on the situation in Southern Kordofan, in addition to the government’s extensive response, issued on August 16, 2011 by its mission to the United Nations office in Geneva, to the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, released in early August 2011.