Global IssuesSUDAN: New Conflict Displaces Thousands
The Sudanese government says that a majority of the tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting in the country’s Blue Nile state have started returning to the area. This is despite reports by local and international aid agencies that say people are still fleeing the region.
On Tuesday the United Nations estimated that over 100,000 people have been displaced by the fighting that began two weeks ago. On Sep. 1, Blue Nile became another conflict area in Sudan when fighting erupted between forces loyal to the north Sudan faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) — the ruling political party in South Sudan originally formed to oppose Sudan’s rule — and government’s Sudan Armed Forces.
The Sudanese Red Crescent Society estimated that 35,000 households have been affected since fighting began in Blue Nile at the beginning of September. The U.N.’s Refugee Agency reported that 16,000 refugees fled the area into Ethiopia.
But Magdi Abdulwahab, who is responsible for compiling reports on the Blue Nile for Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP), said that the state is stabilising and internally displaced persons are returning to safe regions in Blue Nile and neighbouring states. Blue Nile is one of Sudan’s 15 states. It borders South Sudan to its west and south, Ethiopia to its east and has a population of just over 800,000.
'Seventy percent of displaced persons in places like Sennar (a state bordering Blue Nile) and Senja, the capital of Sennar, are returning,' he told IPS. He said government had urged the IDPs to return for the harvest. 'The government is asking people to return as this is the agricultural season and the livelihoods of most of the state's citizens are tied to agriculture and livestock,' said Abdulwahab. He added he receives daily reports confirming that the situation in the state is calm.
Media reports have shown that most of the heavy fighting has occurred in Damazin, the capital of Blue Nile state, and Kurmuk, a SPLM-controlled town near the Ethiopian border. But political anaylsts say that the conflict has been a long-time coming.
Even the former governor of Blue Nile, Malik Agar, who has since been fired by government, warned of the possible conflict in the area since June. He said it would occur if government and the SPLM failed to complete the remaining proposals of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which was signed between both parties to end the country’s 21-year civil war. A military representative, Commander Yahya Mohamed Kheir, has since replaced Agar as governor and a state of emergency was enforced in the state.
Government and the SPLM were supposed to resolve various issues, including those of oil revenues, border demarcation and military arrangements in the border areas of Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile before South Sudan's secession in July.
But by late July, the Sudanese government still had a heavy military presence in Blue Nile and Agar had called for a review of the CPA on this matter. (Agar is also the chairman of SPLM-North, a faction of the SPLM that is comprised of people from Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.) The Sudanese government called for the dissolution of the SPLM-North’s army, but Agar wanted further guarantees about the future of his soldiers.
'Agar did not refuse dissolving the army in principal, he asked for a political arrangement to secure the soldier's future in the Sudanese army, or as civil servants, or as members in their communities,' said Dr. Khalil Al-Madani, the Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Economic and Social Studies at Nileen University in Khartoum.
He is also the head of a team of experts working on the council involved in the popular consultations between Blue Nile state and Sudan’s government.
This is a CPA-mandated process that allows both Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan to voice their opinions on political and administrative arrangements with the government and to even vote for autonomous rule.
'The war did not happen now, all the factors leading to war were present, but it ignited now,' said Al- Madani.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service