The Hill News

I recently joined Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Ma), my co-chair on the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, in introducing the Sudan Peace, Security, and Accountability Act of 2012 (H.R. 4169).  This important legislation is aimed at developing a comprehensive strategy to bring lasting peace to Sudan and end the decades long cycle of violence and human rights abuses in the war-torn country.

This legislation has never been more necessary. Having recently returned from South Sudan, where spent time in a refugee camp in just miles from the border with Sudan, I was appalled by what I encountered.

There are more than 25,000 men, women and children living in Yida refugee camp, all of whom have fled the violence in the Nuba Mountains. Yida is the same camp actor George Clooney, NBC news correspondent Ann Currie and New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof have  visited in recent weeks.

Many of the women I met with in the camp recounted h! ow their villages were pillaged and burned by uniformed Sudanese soldiers. They told of brutal attacks gruesome killing.  They relayed stories of women and young girls being raped.  They explained how they lived in fear of daily Antonov bombing raids that indiscriminately shelled civilian populations, a trademark of Sudanese president Omar Bashir’s regime.  There are now reports that the Sudanese Army has begun using long-range Chinese rockets to bombard the Nuba Mountains.

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