There are growing concerns that South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, is replicating some of the oppressive characteristics of Sudan’s regime. But freedom fighters say it was not what they fought for. Pictured here children celebrate South Sudan’s second birthday in July 2013 in Juba. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
JUBA , Jun 27 2013 (IPS)

Since age 18, Zechariah Manyok Biar fought in the revolutionary army that won South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in July 2011. But now the 28-year-old is in exile from the country he helped liberate.

The former civil servant from the South Sudanese Ministry of Roads and Bridges wrote opinion pieces critical of the government that were published on the Paris-based Sudan Tribune’s website. Biar was forced to flee South Sudan in December 2012 after receiving information that members of the country’s security forces were planning to kill him.

“If there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom, and we were fighting for freedom,” Biar told IPS by telephone from an undisclosed location. “What is disturbing to me is that we are even worse than the government in Khartoum.”

Biar said he met with agents from the National Security Service as well as the police and asked for protection. But he finally decided to leave the country after a lack of progress in the investigation into the threats against him.

Biar believes that this inaction proves that the culprits are connected to people close to President Salva Kiir. He added that he thinks an “influential” but “small group” inside the government is carrying out attacks on critics, against Kiir’s wishes. He said they are acting in their own self interest in maintaining their positions by ensuring that Kiir is not replaced due to popular discontent.

“They are people who think that they are protecting the president. They are people who think that the failure of South Sudan would mean the failure of the president and therefore the loss of their privilege,” Biar said.

There are growing concerns that South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, is replicating some of the oppressive characteristics of Sudan’s regime amid reports of harassment and attacks against journalists, government critics and aid workers.

The United Nations has repeatedly urged South Sudan’s government to stop security forces from attacking journalists and activists, harassing aid workers, and killing civilians.“If there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom, and we were fighting for freedom.” -- Zechariah Manyok Biar, former civil servant from the South Sudanese Ministry of Roads and Bridges

“UNMISS is deeply disturbed by reports of threats, intimidation, harassment and attacks against journalists, civil society and human-rights activists,” Hilde Johnson, head of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), told reporters in the capital, Juba, in February.

Johnson called for “accountability for human rights violations committed by the security forces.” She said the government should release the results of a promised investigation into the Dec. 4, 2012 massacre of 13 civilians in Jonglei state allegedly by government soldiers. She also urged the government to prosecute those responsible for the Dec. 5, 2012 murder of journalist Isaiah Abraham, an outspoken critic of the government.

Government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin told reporters in Juba that authorities were investigating Abraham’s killing. But he denied that last year’s massacre of civilians in Jonglei ever took place, and said journalists, aid workers and activists were free to do their work in South Sudan.

“I believe our human rights record is going well, we are very transparent about it,” Benjamin insisted.

However, two UNMISS human rights officers were detained in January while investigating threats against journalists.

“It is imperative that our mandate and diplomatic immunities are respected fully,” Ariane Quentier, a spokesperson for the mission, told IPS. “The government has assured UNMISS that they will fully respect the human rights mandate of the mission and enable its work.”

In a February report, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted attacks or incidents on aid workers accessing insecure areas rose by 48 percent in 2012 from the previous year. Incidents include the beating of 61 staff members, the arbitrary arrests of 78 aid workers, and the seizure of 97 vehicles. Eighty- five percent of the incidents were carried out by “state actors”, according to OCHA.

But Benjamin claimed the government has not been made aware of these cases. “I don’t think that is happening in the Republic of South Sudan,” he said.

Chase Hannon, who worked from 2010 to 2012 as a security advisor to a group of 150 non-governmental organisations in South Sudan, told IPS that the true number of incidents is probably far higher as NGOs often do not report them, as they fear a backlash.

Hannon said physical attacks by security forces are commonplace and often involve weapons. They included the beating of the country director of “a large international NGO” with the butt end of an AK-47. Two country directors and one deputy director left South Sudan in 2012 due to concerns about their personal safety, he said.

He responded “dozens of times during the past two years” to NGO staff being detained, he added.

“Nearly all of South Sudan’s security forces were responsible for these incidents at one time or another,” Hannon said, citing the police, army, National Security Service, and the presidential and vice-presidential security details among others.

“The large number of units responsible for law enforcement – often with unclear but overlapping mandates – made dealing with these incidents much more difficult.”

Insecurity in South Sudan has created a risky environment for investors, according to Steven Wondu, the country’s auditor general. He told IPS the government “lacks the ability to protect lives and property”, and businessmen face the risk of being “beaten up,” while there is impunity for perpetrators of violence.

But Wondu said problems such as poor governance and a lack of rule of law were to be expected in a country that recently emerged from a 22-year-long civil war. South Sudan is currently one of the poorest countries in the world, and has a largely illiterate population and limited infrastructure.

“We are going to have a very high rate of political risk for a very long time,” he said in an interview in Juba.

Wondu said he expected the security and economic situation to improve slowly as South Sudan demobilised many of its security forces, based on a recommendation he made to the government.

“The security sector in general draws a disproportionately large portion of the budget leaving very little for development efforts,” he said. “Everybody knows that something has to be done about the structure of the security services.”

Wondu said the bloated security sector is partly the result of a policy of incorporating anti-government militias that were left in South Sudan following the civil war in which Sudan armed proxy forces. He said the strategy was necessary to “buy peace” but added that it “makes command and control very difficult.”

“Are we actually getting security or are we getting more insecurity?” he asked.

A Murle child victim of the late December, early January attacks being treated in a hospital in Juba. Jared Ferie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
YUAI, South Sudan, Oct 31 2012 (IPS)

The huge Russian-made helicopter descended slowly towards conical mud huts clustered together and surrounded by endless grassland, lush and green with the season’s rains here in the South Sudanese village of Yuai.

The scene is tranquil now, but less than a year ago this was a community caught up in ethnic conflict that engulfed Jonglei state and saw thousands of people murdered.

Villagers of Yuai gathered at this dirt airstrip on Oct. 26 to welcome members of a committee tasked by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir with bringing peace to the violence-wracked state.

At least 1,600 people died in 2011 in fighting between the Murle and Lou Nuer ethnic groups, according to the United Nations. Clashes continued into February, killing another 400 people. 

“The president asked me and other colleagues to bring peace to greater Jonglei as a whole, because at the time Jonglei was almost breaking apart. We were eating ourselves, Nuer, Dinka, Murle,” committee head Daniel Deng, who is the archbishop of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and South Sudan, told community leaders in Yuai.

In the wake of the violence, the government launched a peace process as well as a state-wide programme to disarm civilians in March.

The disarmament campaign has been plagued by allegations of abuse by government soldiers, but peace has largely held between the ethnic groups, whose leaders signed a reconciliation agreement in May.

That fragile peace is now being threatened by the emergence of a new anti-government militia led by David Yau Yau, and analysts and officials warn the rebels could spark renewed ethnic conflict in Jonglei.

“We hope that the government has the upper hand, they will control this rebellion,” Deng told IPS.

“If the government manages to control David Yau Yau, then I think the civilians will be happy and the peace will continue.”

The South Sudanese government blames its former civil war foe, Sudan, for arming Yau Yau – a charge Sudanese officials deny. But abuses during disarmament perpetrated by its own army, which is known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), have also contributed to the militia’s gathering strength, according to a report released on Wednesday Oct. 31 by Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research institution.

“Soldiers conducting the campaign have committed rapes, torture, and killings—mostly against Murle communities—deepening Murle distrust of the SPLA,” according to the report entitled “My Neighbour, My Enemy: Inter-tribal Violence In Jonglei”.

Jonah Leff, the report’s author, told IPS that Yau Yau has “been able to recruit Murle youth by exploiting their grievances over SPLA misconduct during the disarmament programme.” He added that Lou Nuer youth have begun to rearm in case of attacks by Murle youth who have been provided with weapons by Yau Yau.

Deng said he was worried that Yau Yau could destroy the peace between tribes if the SPLA was unable to prevent his forces from attacking other ethnic communities.

Such a damaging pattern may have already begun.

Peacekeepers patrol the South Sudanese village of Yuai earlier this year, before the rains. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

In an interview in Yuai, capital of Uror County, the county commissioner, Simon Duoth, said rebel fighters attacked a family in neighbouring Akobo County on Oct. 25.

Both counties are part of the traditional homeland of the Lou Nuer.

Previously, Yau Yau’s forces primarily targeted SPLA posts in Pibor County, which is home to the Murle. At least 100 soldiers have been killed since Aug. 22, according to Small Arms Survey, which estimates that the militia now numbers 3,000 fighters.

If the pattern of abuse of Murle civilians by soldiers continues, that number could grow.

Small Arms Survey said in the report that soldiers have even “beaten and detained civilians trying to bring violations to their attention.” The group said the attitude towards disarmament in Lou Nuer areas has been more positive, with people reporting that soldiers have returned stolen cattle and escorted farmers to their fields.

“The Murle, on the other hand, report that the SPLA have offered little or no protection, and in some cases have stolen their farming tools,” says the report. “For many Murle, the principal enemy is no longer the Lou Nuer but the SPLA.”

Colonel Kella Dual Kueth, an army spokesman, denied that soldiers were committing abuses. Other government officials have blamed individual soldiers, denying that there is a pattern of abuse against Murle civilians.

Deng echoed those statements: “It is not the policy; it is some soldiers who might have gone astray.

“So it cannot be considered that it is the SPLA. It is those who are not respecting the law and already the SPLA has taken measures against them,” he said.

But organisations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented widespread abuses in Pibor that include rape, beatings and torture. In an Aug. 23 statement, HRW said “authorities have not taken sufficient steps to curb the violations or hold abusive soldiers accountable.”

Small Arms Survey noted that between March and September the United Nations peacekeeping mission (UNMISS) had made only one public statement about “apparent human rights violations” taking place as part of disarmament campaign ordered by the ruling party, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM).

“UNMISS has failed to carry out its mandate to protect civilians in the face of widespread SPLA abuses, and has not sufficiently taken up the matter with the SPLM or SPLA leadership in Juba,” the report said.

Kouider Zerrouk, a spokesman for the mission, denied the charges.

“On the contrary, UNMISS has raised its concerns with the SPLA, calling for the abuses in Pibor County to be stemmed,” he told IPS.

“UNMISS recognises that some steps have been taken to strengthen investigations, with some arrests in recent rape cases and some older cases going to trial.”

Members of the Murle ethnic group wait to receive food aid after attacks from a rival tribe that the U.N. says affected at least 120,000 people. Credit: Jared Ferrie /IPS

By Jared Ferrie
JUBA , Aug 25 2012 (IPS)

South Sudanese soldiers are allegedly beating and torturing civilians in the midst of a disarmament campaign in Jonglei state, and many have been unable to access justice because of a lack of prosecutors and judges, according to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch. 

“Justice and accountability in Jonglei seem to have fallen by the wayside,” HRWs Africa director, Daniel Bekele, said in a statement to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir as HRW called for him to intervene.

“Authorities should investigate the cycle of violence in Jonglei, immediately put a stop to violations committed in the course of civilian disarmament, and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”

The alleged abuses are taking place in Pibor County, which is about 273 kilometres from Juba, South Sudan’s capital. The area is the traditional homeland of the Murle, an ethnic group involved in clashes with the Lou Nuer that lasted throughout 2011 and into early 2012.

The U.N. said more than 1,000 people were killed in Jonglei in 2011. In addition, at least 900 people – mostly Murle – were killed in attacks and counterattacks from December to February, according to a report released on May 25 by the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

In the wake of the clashes, South Sudan’s government began a statewide disarmament campaign and launched a peace process aimed at reconciliation between the Murle and Lou Nuer.

But the disarmament campaign has been plagued by allegations of abuse. On Apr. 30, a coalition of civil society groups including Washington DC-based Pact and the South Sudan Law Society released a report documenting violence during to the voluntary phase of disarmament. The report warned that violence was likely to increase as disarmament moved into the enforcement phase at the beginning of May.

Elizabeth Ashamu, a research fellow with HRW, told IPS that access to justice is a problem in much of South Sudan, which is one of the world’s poorest countries and has an underdeveloped legal system. But she said special efforts should be made to ensure that civilians have access to justice in the context of a disarmament programme being carried out by the army that has a history of committing abuses against civilians.

Ashamu said there is no civilian prosecutor or judge in Pibor County where HRW focused its research. While complainants can take their case to the police, if there is no prosecutor in the county, the case will not be heard in a local court. So victims would have to travel by land to the Jonglei state capital, Bor, where there is a prosecutor. But Bor is unreachable during the current rainy season when roads are flooded.

“It’s just physically difficult for anyone to file a complaint,” she said in an interview. “There’s also fear of coming forth and filing a complaint, which is exacerbated when the abuse is committed by soldiers.”

Between Jul. 19 and 26 Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed victims and witnesses who accused soldiers of shooting at civilians and beating them. A woman said about five soldiers beat her while she had her baby strapped to her back. One man had visible scars from ropes he said were used to tie him to a tree and sticks used to beat him. Another man said he and six others were subjected to water torture.

“They took us to a pool of water and pushed our heads under water. Then they lifted us up, beat us, and asked for guns. Then they pushed our heads into the water again,” he told HRW. “There were five soldiers (each) holding each of us — one for each leg, and each arm, and one person to push our heads into the water.”

The U.N. peacekeeping mission also released a statement on Aug. 24 documenting alleged abuses including rapes, abductions and simulated drownings.

“The majority of the victims are women, and in some cases children,” the mission said, calling on the authorities to hold perpetrators accountable while noting that the army has taken steps to investigate rape cases. The mission added that the army says it has ordered senior officers to conduct investigations and has recalled patrols allegedly involved in “criminal incidents”.

Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) told IPS that from mid-March to Aug. 20 it treated 90 people with violent trauma injuries in Pibor town, and surrounding villages. Of those, three died of their injuries. The organisation’s medical team also treated 16 rape survivors and eight survivors of attempted rape over the same period.

“These are just the patients that came to MSF to seek treatment, and MSF is concerned that there may be other people with trauma injuries who have not come forward to seek medical care,” said Stefano Zannini, MSF’s head of mission.

The U.N. mission, UNMISS, said on Aug. 24 there have been “significant improvements in the security situation in Jonglei state” since the clashes early this year, but incidents of abuse have spiked recently.

“UNMISS is concerned by the recent increase in serious human rights violations allegedly committed by some undisciplined elements within the South Sudanese Army (SPLA) in Pibor County.”

The mission said that between July 15 and Aug. 20 its monitoring teams recorded one killing, 27 allegations of torture or ill treatment, 12 rapes, six attempted rapes and eight abductions.

Researchers with HRW said they received credible reports of rape, and reports from local officials that more than six civilians were killed in the village of Likuangole after a soldier was killed on Aug. 16.

“Such reports likely represent a small fraction of the actual total number of incidents, as many victims do not travel to Pibor to report the crimes,” Bekele said in the letter to Kiir, referring to the county capital, which is also called Pibor.

The U.N. mission noted that the government sponsored a conference in May that brought together tribal leaders who agreed on steps to be taken to foster peace in Jonglei.

“Failure to identify those suspected of human rights abuses, carry out full investigations in all cases, and demonstrate that justice is being done for the victims, will undermine the confidence and collaboration of local communities in the disarmament process, and risks derailing the peace process,” the mission said.

South Sudan’s government spokesman, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, directed questions to the country’s human rights commission chair, Lawrence Korbandy, who was unable to comment.

Nyan Tuch in her temporary home in a camp outside of Aweil where she is living until the government provides her family with land. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
JUBA, Jul 9 2012 (IPS)

The streets have been swept clean and lined with flags to mark the first anniversary of South Sudan’s independence. But cosmetic changes in the capital, Juba, mask deep concerns about the future of the world’s newest nation.

South Sudan’s first year of independence has been marred by violent clashes, food shortages, a refugee crisis and a faltering economy that threatens to halt development. As the nation celebrates its liberation from Sudan after a civil war that killed an estimated two million people, messages from the international community were decidedly muted.

“Looking back, the last year has clearly been a difficult one for the people of South Sudan,” Hilde Johnson, the United Nations secretary general’s special representative, told reporters in Juba on Friday, Jul. 6. “It’s been a tough start.”

In a strongly-worded statement read out at the United States embassy’s July 4 celebrations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the country faces “significant challenges that threaten stability and prosperity.”

“Conflict and unresolved issues with Sudan and domestic inter-ethnic tensions have led to increased fighting and economic hardship, which threatens to compromise the very foundations upon which South Sudan’s future was to be built,” she said.

Much of South Sudan’s future was tied to oil. The country inherited three quarters of Sudan’s reserves when it separated, but the pipelines and processing facilities remain north of the border, along with the port that South Sudan needs to use to get its oil to market.

It was thought that the countries’ mutual interest in oil revenue would help foster a working relationship between the former civil war foes. But it has not worked out that way. Talks since independence have failed to yield an agreement on how much South Sudan should pay to ship its oil through Sudan. In late January, South Sudan shut down oil production after Sudan confiscated 815 million dollars worth of Southern crude, which it claimed was in lieu of unpaid fees.

South Sudan said it had no choice but to halt production because Sudan was “stealing” its oil. But in doing so, the government deprived itself of 98 percent of its revenue. Already greatly dependent on the international community for aid, donors are now concerned that South Sudan will now be unable to fund any development programmes or even pay public sector salaries, which could lead to civil unrest.

“We must not allow the large investments in agriculture, water, education and other services to be undone by the economic crisis and increase in conflict,” said Helen McElhinney, a policy advisor with Oxfam International. “The longer this crisis drags on, the greater the risk South Sudan’s development will slip backwards, and its vast potential will be unrealised.”

Alfred Lokuji, dean of Juba University’s Community and Rural Development Studies department, said an agreement to restart oil production would not solve South Sudan’s problems.

“Even if the oil were flowing, the fundamental problem remains – how to manage it, how to manage those resources,” he said.

Lokuji pointed out that South Sudan and Sudan split oil revenues 50-50 in the five years leading up to independence, but southerners have seen very little development. Instead, oil wealth has been squandered and stolen.

On May 3, President Salva Kiir wrote a letter to 75 former and current “senior” government officials asking them to return stolen public funds. He said that four billion dollars had been looted.

Lokuji said that the letter was unlikely to succeed in convincing people to return money lost to corruption, or to prevent officials from stealing more. He criticised the government for failing to bring charges against corrupt officials during South Sudan’s first year of independence.

“I’d say it has been a failure, a failure because we have been unable to get a hold of corruption, unable to put things in order, put institutions in order and get going,” he said.

Even as the economy stagnates after the loss of oil revenue, humanitarian needs are increasing. The number of people requiring food aid in 2012 doubled from the previous year to 2.4 million, according to the U.N. Some of those are people displaced by ethnic violence that is most pronounced in Jonglei, an eastern state bordering Ethiopia.

More than 1,000 people died in fighting between the Murle and Lou Nuer ethnic groups in Jonglei in 2011. At least 900 more died in clashes that began in late December and stretched to February, according to a May 25 report by the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

The report noted that U.N. surveillance flights had reported around 8,000 Lou Nuer marching toward Murle communities in the weeks leading up the December attacks. Despite advanced warning, “the government was slow to respond in any robust way.”

“Actions taken came too late and insufficient troops were deployed at the critical time,” the report said.

South Sudan is also struggling to cope with close to 200,000 refugees that have crossed the border from Sudan’s Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states where the Khartoum government is fighting an insurgency. On Jul. 4, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres warned that people are arriving “dangerously malnourished” to camps where “the threat from water born disease is high.”

In addition to refugees, about 375,000 southerners have returned from Sudan since October 2010, according to the International Organization for Migration. The government has promised to provide land to them but many remain in temporary camps.

In one camp outside of Aweil, the capital of Bahr El Ghazal state, 50-year-old Nyan Tuch has been waiting almost 20 months for the government to give her family a plot of land. She lived for four decades in Sudan where she and her husband were both employed and owned a house. As the referendum on whether the south would separate loomed, tensions increased and they decided to return to their homeland.

Tuch and her husband now live in a thatched hut with a tarpaulin roof and they farm vegetables to survive. But she said she has no regrets about returning.

“I am filled with joy at one year independence it is now a country of our own,” she said. “What we are looking for is for the government to allocate our land. And we are hoping the place we have will be better than the place we left in the north because this is our place, we are proud of it.”

Refugees dig for water in a dried up watering hole in Jamam camp, in South Sudan's Upper Nile state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
JUBA, Jun 14 2012 (IPS)

Sudanese refugees have started dying as a camp in South Sudan ran out of water four days ago after a massive influx of people fled across the border to escape war and hunger.

The refugees are fleeing Sudan’s Blue Nile state where insurgents are fighting to overthrow the Sudanese government.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said earlier in an April report that civilians are suffering from an indiscriminate aerial bombing campaign.

Voitek Asztabski, an emergency coordinator with Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), said some refugees died as they walked seven to 10 hours to a new site in search of water after camp Kilometer 48 in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state ran out of it on Jun 11.

The agency is still carrying out a mortality survey to find out how many adults and children have died and what the causes are. However, MSF estimates that an average of five to 10 people have died each day since water ran out at the Kilometer 48 camp.

MSF said in a statement on Jun. 13 that “the 15,000 refugees remaining at this location walked en masse the 25 km to the nearest location with available water.”

Heavy rains prevented agencies from moving them by truck on flooded roads.

“We observed people dying of thirst, of dehydration,” Asztabski said by satellite phone from camp Kilometer 18, the new site with limited available water. “That was quite a horrifying activity being witnessed by us here.”

Some people were too weak to respond to medical care.

“We went early on Tuesday morning to provide medical assistance and rehydration points along the route,” said MSF’s Dr. Erna Rijnierse in the statement.

“It was a truly shocking sight as we witnessed some of the weakest dying as they walked – too dehydrated for even the most urgent medical care to save them.”

There are now 105,000 Sudanese refugees from Blue Nile state in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state, according the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, while another 15,000 are on their way.

Asztabski said that refugees are arriving malnourished, dehydrated and diseased after walking from their homes in Blue Nile. Common conditions include pneumonia and other respiratory infections contracted from sleeping outdoors without any shelter, as well as diarrhoea from drinking contaminated water.

He called for a “proactive” approach to the crisis, saying that agencies have instead been reacting to the emergency without putting contingency plans in place. For example, there is no plan for what to do after water runs out at camp Kilometer 18, which will likely happen in about two and a half weeks.

Aid agencies have been warning for months that refugees needed to be relocated before potable water ran out and the rainy season began, making transport extremely difficult. In March, Andrew Omale, an emergency coordinator with Oxfam International, told IPS that the refugee situation in Upper Nile was a “forgotten emergency” and called for more support.

Asztabski said agencies continue to be hampered by a lack of capacity and resources. He compared the scale of the crisis to an area in Ethiopia where he was based last year when famine in Somalia sent refugees over the border into that country as well as Kenya. About 10 million people were affected by the drought in the Horn of Africa. But he said there are fewer resources available for this emergency.

“Everyone is overstretched in this situation,” said Asztabski. “This crisis needs more attention, more investment.”

The refugees began streaming from Blue Nile into South Sudan and Ethiopia in early September after Sudan ousted Blue Nile’s elected state governor, Malik Agar, and replaced him with a military appointee. Agar’s forces have been fighting the government since then, and HRW says civilians have borne the brunt of military abuses.

In its April report, HRW documented reported violations against civilians including arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings, beatings and torture. HRW said government forces targeted people they suspected of connections to the group led by Agar, which is known as the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).

The SPLM-N is active in Blue Nile as well as neighbouring Southern Kordofan state, where the U.N. says 47,000 refugees have fled across the border into South Sudan’s Unity state.

The rebels were formerly part of the SPLM, which fought a two-decade civil war against Khartoum that resulted in South Sudan’s secession. When the South declared independence last July, the SPLM in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile added “North” to their name and declared themselves a separate political party in Sudan. But the SPLM-N took up arms again after accusing Khartoum of cracking down on them.

Sudan has repeatedly denied targeting civilians during its fight against the SPLM-N. But rights groups as well as the British and United States governments have called on Khartoum to stop bombing civilians.

Asztabski said refugees also tell of fleeing the bombing with very few possessions and having to walk for as many as two months to reach the border. “They are telling us horrific stories,” he said. “It’s a very treacherous and exhausting journey.”

Civil society groups are calling on the United Nations peacekeeping mission to withdraw support from a disarmament programme they say could spark further violence in South Sudan’s volatile Jonglei state.

Members of the Murle group displaced by ethnic violence await food distribution in Gumuruk, Pibor county, in South Sudan's Jonglie state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

Jonglei has long been plagued by ethnic tensions and cattle raids made exceptionally deadly because of the easy availability of arms left over from a two-decade civil war that ended in 2005. With an aim to quell violence, the government on Mar. 12 launched a disarmament campaign – first by asking civilians to turn over weapons voluntarily, and as of May 1, enforcing the order.

Now, a coalition of civil society groups has released a report documenting alleged abuses during the voluntary phase of the campaign, which it says received logistical support from the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). The groups warn that violence could escalate now that the government has moved into the enforcement phase.

Incidents documented in the Apr. 30 report, titled Perpetuating Cycles of Violence, include: tying young men to trees and beating them, simulated drowning, and an armed clashbetween the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and members of the ethnic Lou Nuer community who resisted disarmament. That clash resulted in both civilian and SPLA casualties.

“UNMISS is providing material support for a violent, abusive process that weakens support for the state and continues the cycle of violence in Jonglei,” said the report, which was released bythe civil society groups Pact, Community Empowerment for Progress, Standard Action Liaison Focus, Serving and Learning Together and the South Sudan Law Society.

UNMISS denied giving “direct support” to the campaign, which has been carried out by the SPLA. The mission’s assistance has beenlimited to transporting officials throughout the state “to sensitise the population about civilian disarmament process,” Josephine Guerrero, a spokeswoman for the mission, told IPS May 1.

“As UNMISS has not provided any civilian or military contributions to the process, there is also nothing to ‘withdraw’,” she added.

But one of the report’s authors, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, argued that transporting government officials by helicopter constitutes support for the campaign. The author added that UNMISS endorsed the voluntary campaign in a Mar. 12 press release.

Guerrero said UNMISS monitoring teams have reported human rights violations tothe government.

South Sudan’s government spokesman, BarnabaMarial Benjamin, denied that abuses have taken place. “There is no violence up to now,” he told IPS in Juba on May 1. “There’s no resistance anywhere. You may get a few people hiding guns somewhere, but it is going well.”

Medecins Sans Frontiers provided IPS with the number of patients it treated for injuries related to the disarmament campaign. The organisation said it has treated 30 people so far, two of whom died due to their injuries. While most sustained injuries from beatings, at least three had gunshot wounds.

The South Sudanese government launched its disarmament campaign in the wake of attacks on ethnic Murlecommunities by members of the Lou Nuer ethnic group. The assault followed a year of clashes between the groups that killed at least 1,000 peoplefrom both sides, according to the U.N.

In the weeks running up to the attacks,UNMISS air patrols reported that as many as 8,000 Lou Nuer youth were marching toward Murle communities in Pibor county, which is about 273 kilometers from Juba. Despite advanced warning, the government said it was unable to deploy enough troops to stave off the assault. Government officials blamed logistical problems. Much of Jonglei, a state roughly the size of England, is inaccessible by road. And many of the existing roads become impassable when it rains.

The U.N. said the violence affected 160,000 people, many of whom are still displaced and reliant on food aid. The Pibor county commissioner claimed about 3,000 people were killed during attacks against the Murle in Pibor county. Both the government and the U.N. dismissed that figure, but have failed to provide their own estimate despite repeated requests from journalists.

UNMISS investigated the violence,andHilde Johnson, the U.N. secretary general’s special representative for South Sudan, told reporters on Mar. 6 that the UNMISS report would be made public within weeks. But two months after her statement, and four months after the attacks, UNMISS has yet to release its findings.

“UNMISS is finalising a comprehensive report on the violence in Jonglei, which will be shared with the government once it is completed,” said Guerrero, the mission’s spokeswoman. “It will of course be available to the public.”

The Perpetuating Cycles of Violence report notes that disarmament programmes have been carried out in Jonglei at least five times in the past six years without success.

Not only have such campaigns failed to rid the state of weapons, but they have been marked by beatings, torture and the killing of civilians, according to previous reports. During a 2006 campaign that collected 3,000 weapons, for example, the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey calculated one death for every two weapons seized.

The authors of Perpetuating Cycles of Violence argue that the proper conditions must be in place before civilians will feel secure enough to hand over their weapons voluntarily. These include strengthening the policing and justice systems, addressing political grievances, promoting peace and reconciliation between ethnic groups, and providing basic services such as education and health care.

Until those conditions are met, both the government and UNMISS should halt the current campaign, which is likely to result in increased violence as it moves into its enforcement phase, the report said. “Far from being an answer to insecurity in Jonglei, disarmament is a part of the cycle of violence that has plagued the state.”

By Jared Ferrie and - -
JAMAM, South Sudan, Mar 28 2012 (IPS)

Hamid Yussef Bashir said he walked for 17 days with his wife and five children to get to a refugee camp in South Sudan. Here in Jamam, they joined about 37,000 other people who fled from the war across the border in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.

Dozens of women and children were digging into the earth in a dried out watering hole, in the Jamam refugee camp in South Sudan,in search of water. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

“We were facing hunger on the way, and that’s how other people starved to death,” Bashir said. “And with the rains, a lot of people lost their lives from pneumonia.”

While Academy Award winning actor George Clooney’s visit to war-torn Southern Kordofan has made headlines around the world, aid agencies are struggling to respond to the conflict in Blue Nile, which has sent four times as many refugees across the border into South Sudan.

The United Nations says there are about 82,500 Blue Nile refugees in camps in Upper Nile, while some 20,000 have fled Southern Kordofan into South Sudan’s Unity state. The U.N. and the United States government have warned that hundreds of thousands more could flee as food runs out in both states where Sudan is fighting an insurgency.

Sudan’s government is waging war against insurgents in both states, but refugees and human rights groups say Sudan is also targeting civilians in an aerial bombing campaign. Last week, the British and U.S. governments issued statements demanding Sudan stop bombing civilians, and urging South Sudan’s government to cease providing military support to the insurgents.

The rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) was formerly part of the force that fought a two-decade civil war against Sudan, which resulted in the south’s secession. After independence on Jul. 9 last year, the movement officially split and South Sudan’s politicians have repeatedly denied any ties with the SPLM-N.

Andrew Omale, an emergency coordinator with the aid agency Oxfam International, said more are expected as food runs out in Blue Nile, which lies south east of Khartoum and borders Ethiopia.

“I must say it is very unfortunate that this emergency here is a forgotten emergency,” he told reporters on Mar. 22 during to a visit to the camp. “We really appeal to the international community to support the refugees who are here in Maban County.”

Aid agencies are rushing to prepare the camp before the onslaught of the rainy season within the next few weeks. Oxfam International is urging donors to provide funds before that, as it will cost three times as much to move food and other supplies into the area once the rainy season begins and road access becomes difficult or even impossible in some areas.

The rains will also flood the area where most of the refugees are camping, and agencies say they need to move them to higher ground.

Medicines Sans Fronteirs (MSF) warned in an emailed statement on Mar. 14, “Only a short window of opportunity remains before the rainy season severely inhibits the urgent provision of humanitarian assistance.”

Clooney recently visited Yida camp in Unity state, and crossed the border into Southern Kordofan where he spoke to victims of the conflict. He has since done a raft of interviews with U.S. media, met with President Barack Obama, and testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The conflict in Blue Nile has received considerably less attention. “This area here is a very difficult area to access, and probably that’s why the international community is not focusing attention here,” said Omale.

Entisar Abas el-Mak, who arrived two months ago, was waiting outside the MSF clinic with her baby. “Since I came here my child has been sick with diarrhoea and vomiting four times now,” she said.

Kirrily de Polnay, a doctor with MSF, said a shortage of clean water in the camp is resulting in cases of severe dehydration and diarrhoea, along with skin and eye infections, which accompany poor sanitation conditions.

Hy Shelow, the U.N. refugee agency’s assistant representative for protection, said the water table is so deep in most places that drilling machines available in Upper Nile have been unable to penetrate it. He said the U.N. is bringing rigs that should be able to drill 150 metres in order to hit water.

Oxfam International said it is trucking 160,000 litres a day from three existing boreholes to distribution points where refugees receive about six litres per person per day, which is the amount a person needs for basic survival.

But some refugees, including Macda Doka Waka, said water ran out at the distribution point before they were able to receive any. She and dozens of other women and children were digging into the earth in a dried out watering hole in order to extract water from waist-deep pits.

“We used to make lines and fetch water from the tap, but now two days we don’t have water and that’s why all of us shifted here,” she said. “Because of too many people fighting at the water point, we end up fetching here because we don’t want to fight.”

Waka said she fled Blue Nile two months ago, leaving her husband who is fighting in the SPLM-N. She showed reporters her “digging stick”, a mud-encrusted iron rod. Then she continued to fill her container with water scooped one cup at a time from the floor of a hole in the spongy, cracked earth.

Then she went back to her pit in the spongy, cracked earth and continued filling a container with water scooped one cup at a time.

Excerpt:

As Sudan and South Sudan meet for the latest round of negotiations featuring oil as a key issue this week, four ships loaded by Khartoum with southern crude are carrying their disputed cargoes to unknown buyers.

Soldiers patrol an oil field in Paloug, in South Sudan's Upper Nile state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

Economic analysts have said that the shutdown would have a huge economic impact on the new country as oil contributes to 98 percent of its revenue. The threat of possible hostilities with Sudan over oil would also impact on the country’s current high level of food security. This month the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Programme warned that millions in South Sudan face hunger this year as the level of food insecurity has risen sharply from 3.3 million to 4.7 million.

When the south separated from Sudan it took with it about 75 percent of Sudan’s oil reserves. But the landlocked country is dependent on Sudan’s transport, processing and export infrastructure to get its crude to market.

Sudan has demanded 32 dollars a barrel, which includes charges to use facilities as well as a transit fee to cross its territory. South Sudan has offered a maximum of one dollar per barrel in transit fees, and says it is already paying the other fees to companies that own the infrastructure.

Officials from both countries are meeting this week in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to discuss issues outstanding since South Sudan declared independence Jul. 9.

Discussions will include disputed sections of the border and the region of Abyei, as well as fees that landlocked South Sudan will pay to transport its oil through a pipeline across Sudan.

Letters from oil companies provided by the office of Pagan Amum, South Sudan’s chief negotiator, identify four ships that were loaded last month with a total of 2.6 million barrels. Letters identifying the Al Nouf and Sea Sky were given to reporters in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, on January 17. Letters naming the ETC Isis and Ratna Sharada were provided to IPS’s reporter in Juba on Feb. 10.

According to letters by the Petrodar Operating Company (PDOC), its employees were forced last month to load three ships with southern crude – the Sea Sky, the Al Nouf and the ETC Isis. In a Jan 19 letter, the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNOPC) president Zhang Pinxian informed partners that Sudan ordered the loading of 600,000 barrels onto the Ratna Sharada by copying a letter of instruction it received from the government.

In a letter the same day, South Sudan’s Oil Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau ordered GNOPC to provide all information related to the Ratna Sharada, “including with respect to its destinations, as well as who chartered the vessel and who will be purchasing” the crude.

In a Jan. 30 letter to officials from both countries’ oil ministries, Petrodar president Liu Yingcai noted the company’s “disagreement and protest against this unilateral action”, referring to Sudan’s order to load 600,000 barrels of crude belonging to the Republic of South Sudan (RSS) onto the ETC Isis.

“This action is certainly not acceptable as the crude belongs to RSS government and prior approval from RSS is therefore needed,” Yingcai wrote.

In a Jan. 14 letter, Yingcai said Khartoum sent security forces to oversee the loading of 650,000 barrels onto the Sea Sky.

“Our PDOC staff in Marine Terminal had been threatened to be physically removed if they do not comply with the loading activities,” he wrote.

Petrodar was ordered to load 750,000 barrels onto the Al Nouf, according to a Jan. 16 letter.

Information regarding the destinations or purchasers of the four cargoes has not yet been made officially public.

South Sudan’s oil minister has said his government has a team investigating and preparing legal cases against parties involved in transporting and trading stolen oil.

“Any company involved in shipping, trading, or buying this disputed crude needs to publicly clarify the nature of their involvement, who and how much they’ve paid, and where the oil is going,” said Dana Wilkins of Global Witness, a natural resources watchdog group.

One ship, the Al Nouf, is pictured on the website of FAL Oil, an oil trading company based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, in a photo gallery entitled “Our Ships”. Calls to FAL Oil were not answered.

Petrodar said in an emailed response to questions that the company has no knowledge of the destinations of the three ships it was forced to load with southern crude, or who the buyers are.

Calls to GNPOC’s headquarters in Khartoum were not answered and the company did not respond to emailed questions. South Sudan’s oil minister did not reply to emailed requests for comment.

In the ward of a partially destroyed clinic, Mangiro (who did not give his last name) sat on a bed next to his wounded nine-year-old daughter, Ngathin. The little girl is fortunate, she survived the recent inter-ethnic clashes in Pibor county that killed her mother and sisters.

Members of the Murle ethnic group wait to receive food aid after attacks from a rival tribe that the U.N. says affected at least 120,000 people. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

There are still no official figures released on how many people were killed, but the United Nations says at least 120,000 people have been affected by the violence.

Three weeks ago, at least 6,000 armed members of the Lou Nuer tribe attacked Pibor county, which is home to the Murle who have launched similar attacks. They destroyed and damaged homes and buildings, including this clinic run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Villagers were massacred during the assault, including Mangiro’s wife and children. He said his family fled their village when it was attacked and he found Ngathin the following day.

“We found the mother and she was dead and the child was still alive and we carried her here,” he said through a translator. “They attacked us as a family. The mother and the girl’s other sisters are dead.”

He moved aside the sheet to reveal a bandaged wound on Ngathin’s leg where she was shot while fleeing members of a rival ethnic group.

The surviving members of Mangiro’s family are among the 120,000 people the U.N. says have lost their homes and their cattle, which are the key to their livelihoods.

The U.N. has launched a huge emergency operation to bring food to those people, many of whom have been living in the bush for weeks, surviving off wild fruits. The U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) is using helicopters to deliver food to communities that are inaccessible by road in this isolated region.

In the aftermath of the attacks, the U.N. first estimated that 60,000 people had been affected. On Friday, Lise Grande, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, told reporters in Juba that the estimated number of people in need of aid had doubled and may rise even higher. The U.N. has a contingency plan for 180,000 people, she said.

The number of people killed remains a mystery. Immediately after the attacks, the county commissioner estimated 3,000 dead, but the government quickly dismissed that figure. James Chacha, the Pibor county medical officer, told reporters that about 2,000 were killed.

Despite repeated requests from journalists, neither the government nor the U.N. has released figures of bodies counted so far by their investigators.

“We have also been doing recces (reconnaissance flights) over the areas to look at the numbers of tukuls (homes) burnt and so on but there is no credibility in the total figure here that would lead to a number that can give an indication,” Hilde Johnson, the U.N. Secretary General’s representative to South Sudan, told reporters Thursday. “It is far too early.”

The number of wounded is also unknown, according to MSF.

“We are very worried about the medical needs of the people who are still in the bush,” said spokesman Karel Janssens. “We hear from patients and our staff that there are still many wounded in the bush, but as long as we don’t see their direct medical needs it is difficult to answer to that.”

Judith McCallum, a former South Sudan country director of a non-governmental organisation who is writing her PhD thesis on the Murle, said the longer the investigation takes, the less likely the truth will ever be known. Wild animals have already eaten many bodies, she said in an interview.

Whatever the figure of the dead, it will add to the already 1,100 people the U.N. says were killed over the past year in fighting between the Murle and Lou Nuer. After an August attack killed about 600 Lou Nuer, the Sudan Council of Churches launched a peace initiative that was meant to bring tribal leaders together in December to sign a peace agreement.

But the process broke down and by mid-December U.N. aerial patrols reported that at least 6,000 Lou Nuer youth were marching towards Pibor.

Representatives of the armed movement called it the White Army, in reference to the ash the fighters rub onto their bodies. The group issued statements publicising its planned attack on Pibor and vowing to “wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth.”

Johnson warned that such rhetoric is “in violation of both international law and South Sudan’s domestic laws.”

“We have been informed that repetitive hate language continues to be used, calling for ethnic violence and inciting communities to take aggressive actions,” she said.

The government has promised to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for inciting the violence. In the wake of the attacks it dispatched 3,000 security personnel to the conflict area and plans to use troops as a “buffer zone” between the tribes.

Johnson said the U.N. has deployed about half of its 2,100 combat-ready peacekeepers to Jonglei state, which is home to both the ethnic groups.

But security forces have so far been unable to prevent small-scale counter-attacks by Murle youth. On Jan. 16 at least 47 people were killed in an attack on Duk Padiet county, according to Philip Thon Leek Deng, a member of parliament from the area.

Standing in front of thousands of people who gathered in Pibor to receive food aid, WFP Country Director Chris Nikoi appealed for funding to sustain the operation.

“These people have lost everything,” he said. “The international community needs to step in and provide humanitarian organisations the resources we need to help people.”

The refugee camp of Yida in South Sudan is home to over 20,000 people who have fled the violence in Sudan’s South Kordofan state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
YIDA, South Sudan, Dec 13 2011 (IPS)

In the sprawling settlement of Yida, just south of the Sudan border, more than 20,000 people have gathered after fleeing battles in the country’s Southern Kordofan state. But they now find themselves caught up in a new conflict, as recent clashes along the frontier have some warning of the possibility of war.

Fighting flared up last week in Jaw, a disputed area on the border of Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and South Sudan’s Unity state, which both countries claim, and which is about 20 kilometres from the Yida refugee camp, in Unity state.

While the United Nations fears that the fighting could spread to Yida and is attempting to relocate people from the camp, refugees here are reluctant to move.

South Sudan’s military spokesman Philip Aguer accused the Sudanese government of using Antonov bombers, MiG fighters and long range artillery as well as ground troops to launch attack in Jaw on Dec. 4. Sudan said Jaw was part of its territory and claimed it was fighting rebels from the Sudan People Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N).

The SPLM-N, who are fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states, were formerly two divisions of the rebel army that waged a two-decade civil war, which led to the south’s secession. South Sudan says it cut ties with the group after it declared independence Jul. 9, but Sudan accuses the new country of continuing to back the insurgents.

Both countries filed complaints to the United Nations Security Council, accusing the other of violating their sovereignty. On Dec. 8, Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told the Security Council that clashes in Jaw and other disputed border areas could plunge Sudan and its recently independent southern neighbour into all out war.

Refugees in Yida were directly affected as humanitarian groups evacuated on Dec. 4, and airlifts of food ceased for almost a week. On Saturday, the humanitarian agency Samaritan’s Purse flew in the last of its food stocks from Bentiu, the capital of Unity state in South Sudan.

By that time an 85-year-old woman had died after not eating for four days, and the camp had about 500 malnourished children, according to the camp health administrator, Joseph Konda.

One of those children, one-year-old Hamuda, sat on his mothers lap in a nutrition centre with a feeding tube inserted into one of his nostrils. His skin hung loosely on his neck and arms, as his malnourished body had consumed his baby fat.

Hamuda’s mother, Toona Josephina, told IPS she walked four days to Yida along with the rest of the members of her village who fled South Kordofan after their home was attacked by Sudan Armed Forces. She said Antonov aircraft dropped bombs before ground troops arrived and occupied the village.

“As we were coming, we were bombed again when we almost reached Jaw,” she added.

The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) wants Josephina and the rest of the refugees to move to three proposed sites 80 to 100 kilometres further south. The agency has withheld the names of the new camps fearing if they are made public rebels will plant landmines on the sites.

“We fear that the fighting could spread to Yida, which was hit by air strikes in November,” it said in a Dec. 9 statement referring to the Nov. 10 bombing, which the U.N. and the White House blamed on Sudan “UNHCR is speeding up efforts to relocate the refugees away from the volatile border, to new sites that can offer more safety and assistance further inside South Sudan,” the agency said.

The refugees, however, are reluctant to leave Yida and move further south and farther from their homes. Hussaine Al Gumbullah, the camp’s chairman, told IPS one site UNHCR is proposing is large enough to fit only 9,000 people, less than half Yida’s population, and it contains no basic infrastructure. The other site is in a low-lying area that floods during the rainy season and where there are pro-Sudan militia groups active.

Yida, by contrast, has since arrivals began in June grown into an orderly community complete with sheesha and teashops constructed from thick grass and sticks in a lively market area. The site also has cement buildings including a clinic and food distribution centre.

Al Gumbullah added that the alternative sites had security issues including landmines.

UNHCR says the sites are safer than Yida and it hopes to convince the refugees to move.

“To ensure safe passage, the U.N. Mine Action Centre is doing mine surveys and clearance,” the agency said. “We hope to relocate a first group of willing refugees very soon.”

From the perspective of UNHCR, Yida is becoming less of a viable location as fighting along the border becomes more frequent. As the agency pointed out: “Escalating insecurity has also affected humanitarian access and the flow of aid, causing assistance at Yida to be disrupted repeatedly.”

The stalemate between UNHCR and the refugee population shows no sign of going away. And the camp’s population just keeps growing as between 60 and 110 more people arrive every day.

Yida is only one of the fronts where UNHCR is dealing with an influx of refugees. In Upper Nile state in South Sudan, refugees have been flooding over the border at a rate of about 650 a day to escape fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile state. Most of those are arriving in Doro, a camp housing about 20,000 people.

“A group of 10,000 refugees were recently identified near Elfoj in Maban
county of South Sudan’s Upper Nile state,” said UNHCR. “Thousands more are believed to be stranded in remote locations along the border.”

UNHCR says almost 33,000 people have fled to Ethiopia from Blue Nile, while South Sudan has absorbed more than 50,000 refugees since fighting began in June in Southern Kordofan. The number is likely to rise dramatically as fighting continues in both states.

Joyous reunions accompanied the latest batch of South Sudanese returning from Sudan to their newly independent homeland. But the returnees will face huge challenges integrating into South Sudan, which became the world’s newest nation on Jul. 9, but also one of the poorest.

Cheers, ululations and cries of "hallelujah" arose from the banks of the Nile and from the decks of the barges as people returned to South Sudan. Credit: Hannah McNeish/IPS

South Sudan’s government has struggling to accommodate more than 350,000 people who have returned since October 2010 – and with another million southerners still in the north, that pressure is likely to increase.

Relatives gathered at Juba Port on Nov. 28 to wait for the arrival of two barges filled with more 3,200 returnees. Cheers, ululations and cries of “hallelujah” arose from the banks of the Nile and from the decks of the barges as they approached the port after 12 days on the river.

As the returnees disembarked they were met with warm embraces from family members. “That is a very joyous moment,” said Daniel Simon after greeting his mother who he said he had not seen for years. He had left Sudan years ago to return to Juba.

Saloma Majok, Simon’s mother, said she was “very, very happy” to see her son again. She said she had been living Khartoum for the past 24 years, adding that she was also happy to be in her own country even though she knew her family would have a hard time rebuilding their lives. “Even in this situation I am very proud,” she said.

Duer Tut Duer Makuac, chair of the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, said the organisation would coordinate with governors and county commissioners in the home areas of returnees to organise land distribution. But he said the process has not always gone smoothly, and some have been left landless.

“We knew from a long time ago that they are going to be brought to the south,” Makuac said. “We were supposed to organise ourselves a long time ago, it was not done, but this time it is going to be done.”

Iklas Monu Ahmed said she had been camping next to the port in a shelter constructed from sheets and plastic since she returned four months ago, because she has nowhere else to go.

She sat on a bed frame under a tree with her three-year-old son lying next to her, sick with malaria. Ahmed said she had no money to buy medication for the boy.

She said she expected more from life in South Sudan.

“There are many changes, but for me to join the changes in this new nation I need to first get a piece of land and settle my family,” she said, adding that no one from the government or international agencies had visited her since she arrived.

The government will likely face even more pressure to address the needs of people like Ahmed in the coming months. Jan De Wilde, head of mission for the United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said there are about one million southerners facing an uncertain future in the north.

De Wilde explained that the Khartoum government has set a date of Apr. 9, 2012, to clarify their residential status, but the government has not yet provided any options, such as permanent residency or citizenship. “Before that date they have to either get legal or get out basically, and there are no provisions made yet for people getting legal in the north,” he said.

De Wilde said IOM has assisted almost 20,000 returnees so far, and another 9,000 are expected to arrive by barge in the coming weeks from Kosti, a staging point along the Nile just north of the border.

While the latest batch of returnees were allowed to load their belongings on eight more barges that were due to arrive within days, De Wilde said transporting such huge amounts of cargo has been slowing down the process. He said IOM could only allow future returnees to bring their basic belongings.

Omer Salah Kajam, deputy general manager of Logistics Sudanese Co., which owns the barges, said those awaiting transport in Kosti have complained strongly about the new regulations. But he said the new regulations would allow officials to transport more people quickly.

In October, Refugees International, a non-governmental organisation, highlighted the plight of those stranded in Kosti, and Renk, which are neighbouring towns on opposite sides of the Sudan/South Sudan border. The organisation said they were trapped without adequate food or shelter, and called on the government and humanitarian agencies to do more to bring them home.

Amidst the crowd of returnees and family members, Makuac said the government would work with international agencies to organise airlifts for those remaining in way stations.

“It will be cheaper in terms resources, in terms of security and in terms of time,” he said. But he added that the government would ask that each family of five bring only 20 kilogrammes worth of personal belongings.

The request will not likely be welcomed by future returnees, especially as those coming before them have been allowed to bring all manner of items.

Kajam said he has seen people load onto barges cargo including donkeys, doorframes and sound systems. But he said he did not blame them, considering that southerners are returning to one of the poorest countries in the world. “They are moving to nothing,” he said. “If I was in their place I would take everything, because I don’t know what I am going to.”

James Ninrew at his office in Juba, South Sudan. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie and - -
JUBA , Nov 28 2011 (IPS)

Civil society leaders in South Sudan are closely watching a legal battle unfolding in Sweden, as prosecutors investigate an oil company accused of involvement in massive human rights abuses here.

James Ninrew at his office in Juba, South Sudan. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

“They used helicopter gunships to bomb houses,” the reverend and civil society leader recalled of the January 2000 attack, in Koch, Unity state. An elderly man and his wife were killed in the attack. “When the houses were on fire, the helicopter gunship landed and the soldiers came out and shot these people.”

Such accusations form part of the basis of a report that has recently prompted Sweden’s public prosecutor, Magnus Elving, to launch an investigation that could lead to a criminal case against Lundin Oil.

The 2010 report by the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) alleges that Lundin may be culpable for atrocities committed against civilians by military and militia forces in areas where it operated. Lundin headed a consortium that included Malaysian, Sudanese and Austrian companies, which signed an oil contract with the government in 1997.

“The start of oil exploitation set off a vicious war in the area,” according to the report, which says almost 200,000 people were forced from their land and thousands were killed, while other crimes included arson, looting, rape and torture.

“The forced displacement was motivated by the desire to secure oil fields for the purpose of exploitation,” said ECOS. The report called on Sweden, Austria and Malaysia to investigate whether the companies “may have been complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Although Elving has not named Lundin as the subject of his investigation, he has stated publicly that it was prompted by the ECOS report. Prosecutors have begun interviewing 40 people who have not been named.

At the time of the alleged crimes, Lundin’s board of directors included Sweden’s current foreign minister, Carl Bildt. Elving has told Swedish media that Bildt is not among the 40, but refused to comment on whether he could be questioned later in the investigation.

Lundin has repeatedly rejected allegations made by ECOS. “There is no new evidence in this report; it essentially reiterates inferences, insinuations and false allegations based on partisan and misleading information,” Ian Lundin, chair of the board of directors wrote in a letter to shareholders after the release of the report.

In 2003, Lundin commissioned a paper to refute allegations that it had been involved in human rights abuses.

The paper pointed out that Lundin consulted community leaders as well as local and central government officials before undertaking operations. The company determined that an oil industry would be of benefit to local communities, and it spent 1.7 million dollars in three years on development projects.

Kathelijne Schenkel of ECOS said in an interview that most of those consulted by Lundin were in fact “important military-political leaders in the area who at the time were allies of the Government in Khartoum.” She called the 1.7 million dollars Lundin spent on development a “ridiculous sum” compared to the damages it brought to the area.

“Lundin sold its stake in 2003 at 142.5 million dollars, cashing in on a 100 million dollars net profit,” said Schenkel.

Lundin has argued that it operated under the assumption that oil wealth could help bring peace to a country that was in the midst of a two-decade civil war, which ended in 2005 and led to South Sudan declaring independence this past July.

“During the period in which the company was active in Sudan, it operated in the belief that oil could benefit the economic development of the area and the country as a whole, and that this would have a catalysing effect on the peace process,” wrote Christine Batruch in the 2003 paper produced by Lundin.

ECOS rejected the argument that the company could have been ignorant of the massive human rights abuses that accompanied that start of oil operations. The report points out that Lundin had been involved in the oil business in Sudan for six years before it signed a deal with the government to explore the area known as Block 5A. By that time the government had a brutal reputation for targeting civilians “as a means of warfare and to secure oil operations”.

Ninrew said the brutal and systematic nature of the government’s operations in advance of the oil industry was obvious to anyone in the area. The government would begin by indiscriminant bombing, driving many from their homes. This would be followed by helicopter gunships flying low in order to attack those that remained.

“The third step was sending ground troops coming in vehicles and coming on foot to make sure no more people were there,” said Ninrew.

Soldiers would then establish posts just beyond the area they wanted to control, he said. After that, the machinery and the surveyors would arrive. Once they were done their work, the pattern would be repeated as the oil company expanded into territory falling under its concession.

Ninrew said he hopes the investigation in Sweden will lead to a criminal case, although he pointed out that it would not necessarily mean compensation. He said the Swedish government should pressure Lundin to compensate affected communities by building schools, clinics and roads.

Ninrew said that even if compensation is not forthcoming, a criminal case against Lundin could have the benefit of preventing future abuses.

“It may serve as a lesson to other companies that want to come to South Sudan and other countries in Africa,” he said. “We want to put an end to those oil companies coming to an area and doing whatever they like without the consent of the local people living in the place.”

Excerpt: