SUDAN-POLITICS: Ethnic Conflict Devastates the South

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Mar 19 1996 (IPS) - The misery that for 13 years has been the norm for the people of southern Sudan has been worsening as rebel groups turn on one other with increasing ferocity when not fighting Khartoum’s army.

“If all the factions unite, I think there will be a chance for the civilians to live in peace,” says Phillip O’Brien, co- ordinator of the UN-funded Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS).

Ethnic conflict, cattle rustling and diseases are making life increasingly unbearable in the south of the country, where at least 500,000 people are believed to have died since 1983, when Col. John Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) took up arms to force Khartoum to grant autonomy to the region.

The conflict took on a new dimension in August 1991 following a split in the SPLA. Since then, a number of factions, each vehemently opposed to at least one other group, have emerged in the south. In parts of Bahr el Ghazal, Jonglei and Upper Nile provinces, clashes between rebels have become more common than battles against the government forces.

The groups oppose one another on ethnic and political grounds:

The SPLA-mainstream, which is supported by the Dinka ethnic group, wants autonomy for the south. The Southern Sudan Independence Army (SSIA), whose troops are mainly Nuers, is demanding independence for the region. So is the SPLA-United, comprising fighters from the Shilluk ethnic group. Its leaders are at loggerheads with those of the SSIA even though there have been no reports of armed clashes between them.

In addition to these three main factions, there are also smaller armed militias.

“The factions are terrorising and killing people and looting cattle in Bahr el Ghazal,” claims a recent visitor to the area, who considers it now uninhabitable. “People are scared and many are fleeing to the north.”

Some three million displaced southerners have found refuge in squalid camps around the capital, located in the Arab Islamic north.

In Jonglei and Upper Nile provinces, thousands have either been killed or displaced since the split in 1991. Inhabited mainly by Nuers and Dinkas, the two provinces have been the scene of ethnic fighting unparallelled in the annals of modern southern Sudan.

The two groups are traditional rivals but the scale of killing has increased with the proliferation of modern arms in the area. Says an aid official working in the south: “Before the present civil war, the tribes in Jonglei and Upper Nile used spears for fighting and raiding cattle. Now, thanks to the SPLA and other rebel groups, the tribes have acquired automatic weapons.”

Claims and counterclaims of atrocities are common.

In one recent instance, the SPLA-mainstream reported that hundreds of people were killed and thousands of cattle raided by the SSIA, which is the armed wing of the Southern Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM). In another, Southern Sudan SSIM leader Riak Machar, wrote a letter to Garang protesting against the massacre of some 145 civilians and the rustling of 4,000 head of cattle by the SPLA-mainstream in a district in Jonglei.

“The atmosphere is charged now. There is likely to be a repeat of the 1991 and 1993 unrest in southern Sudan this year,” says David de Chand, spokesman of the SSIM here. “If that happens,” he told IPS, “it will create untold suffering to the civilian population in the south.”

The factional fighting is also hampering the distribution of food aid in the south and threatens to undermine the precarious health and nutritional status of vulnerable people in the three provinces, according to the OLS.

“These areas have been arenas of war for various militia leaders. People are facing insecurity in all forms. In parts of Bahr el Ghazal, militia raids destroyed up to three-quarters of people’s grain stores; and in the Sobat region, we know that fighting forced people away from their traditional grazing and fishing grounds,” said O’Brien.

Despite increased efforts in 1995 to control the guinea worm, measles and other diseases, repeated insecurity forced many health centres to close in non-government areas, he added.

For example, in northern Bahr el Ghazal, people’s access to health services dropped to about four percent of the population from 36 per cent in 1994. The number of children vaccinated against measles last year — about 4,000 — was just six percent of the 1994 figure.

OLS, formed in 1988 after about 300,000 people died from famine- related diseases, has reported a rise in the incidence of diseases, including kala-azar, typhoid and diarrhoeal ailments.

Assessments conducted by the organisation in over 60 locations last year indicate that almost one million more people will require relief food in 1996 than in 1995. Although widespread crop failures were not expected, frequent loss of livestock and food reserves has made hunger and malnutrition a common occurrence among southern Sudan’s estimated five million people.

“Thousands of people have been deprived of health services, many may face severe food shortages for the second year in a row. If and when we gain access to these areas, which also depends on clearance from the Sudanese government, we may uncover urgent needs which will require extra funding,” said O’Brien.

This year, UN agencies have appealed for 107.6 million dollars to assist 4.5 million people in Sudan.

Priority activities include emergency food aid for an estimated 2.1 million people, and projects to assist about 4.25 million in the areas of health, nutrition, water, agriculture, livestock, relief and shelter, gender, education and special care for children in difficult circumstances.

“There has also been an alarming trend towards abductions of relief personnel and hostage-taking for political ends, mainly by southern factions and militia,” O’Brien reported.

“In 1995, almost 40 relief personnel were taken hostage in three separate incidents, and there were more than 40 evacuations of relief workers from locations in southern Sudan, with varying degrees of danger involved for relief staff.”