Series of ethnic clashes in Sudan cause jitters

NASIR (Sudan), Wednesday

Leaders from northern and southern Sudan are currently meeting in Washington against the backdrop of a series of bloody clashes between rival ethnic groups in the south in recent months.

On June 12, fighting broke out close to Nasir in Upper Nile State, Southern Sudan, when hundreds of armed Jikany Nuer men attacked a flotilla of 31 boats, including 27 carrying grain and other supplies for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), according to UN officials and eyewitnesses.

“The boats were carrying supplies to our enemy,” said Jikany youth Peter Gatwech, recovering from a bullet wound to his stomach in Nasir hospital.

Dozens of people in Nasir said the attack on the boats was prompted after three other boats - thought to be carrying ammunition or arms upstream to the Lou - joined the convoy.

Want revenge

The attack cut supplies to the more than 19,000 displaced Lou Nuer people in the eastern town of Akobo, who had fled earlier fighting against the Murele.

The river convoy had to pass through Nasir - home of the Jikany Nuer people - and the latter want revenge for an attack by Lou gunmen on May 8 that left 71 mainly women and children dead in the village of Torkech.

“They killed so many of us,” said Thiyang Gatbel, a young Jikany girl shot in the arm during the night attack, and still recovering in hospital. “We were sleeping outside under mosquito nets, and they surrounded the village.” In May, the special representative of the UN secretary-general and head of the UN Mission in Sudan, Mr Ashraf Qazi, warned that death rates in the south had outnumbered those in the war-torn western region of Darfur.

Southern Sudan and the north must bolster efforts to implement the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement to ease tensions in the south and avoid possible conflict with the north, observers have warned.

“If this agreement fails, there is a risk that all of Sudan will go to war again,” said Melanie Teff of Refugees International. “Every possible step must be taken to prevent a return to the horrors of the past.”

The agreement ended 22 years of conflict between north and south, and led to the establishment of a semi-autonomous administration in Southern Sudan.

“The danger of violence across Southern Sudan could intensify in the months ahead,” the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a June 21 report.

It warned of the “failure of the government of Southern Sudan and the UN Mission in Sudan to protect civilians”.

New attacks

The Jikany-Lou battles are only one of the conflicts in the south, where complex local alliances reflect divisions and power struggles within the southern leadership, as well as tensions between north and south.

“People are struggling. They are very fearful there will be new attacks by the Lou,” said Peter Gony, the Southern Sudan Refugee and Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC) representative (government’s humanitarian arm) for Nasir.
Local officials are keen to downplay the attack on the aid shipment.

“The attack on the (food aid) boats was not political or against the UN,” said Nasir County commissioner Maj-Gen Garhoth Garkuoth.