Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
PaanLuel Wël, Washington DC, USA
As you make your bed, so must you lie on itEnglish Adage.
March 27, 2011 (SSNA) -- I rarely comment on nor engage in futile debate on trivial issues raised on this news-site though many topics that justifiably demand and does deserve such course of actions from my standpoint of view do abound. Sometimes, however, circumstantial events such as the recent articles authored by Deng Reik KhoryoamMarch25th, 2011called for the embracement of pragmatic flexibility in the face of such unwarranted and sensationalized political propaganda.
In the article, Pagan and the likes area threat to peace and stability in South Sudan!, Mr. Khoryoam attempted to paint an eerily dark and reckless picture of Hon. Pagan Amum, the SPLM SG and the Minister for Peace and CPA Implementation in the government of Southern Sudan, as the sole cause of all problems bedeviling the soon-to-be independent state of South Sudan.
Without delving into each and every baseless accusation he congregated against Hon. Pagan Amum, the doyen of our liberation struggle, it would suffice to state that Mr. Khoryoam is of the erroneous notion that Pagan and the likes are leveling uncalled-for allegations against the NCP; are strikingly lying before cameras about forged animated documents purported to incriminate the NCP; are deliberately diverting public attention away from the SPLM/A own failures to provide public security in South Sudan; and are archaic communists fond of making redundant noises at the wrong time/forum.
Mr.Khoryoam further submitted that Hon. Pagan Amum is resolutely drawing a wedge between President Kiir of the SPLM and Dr. Lam Akol of the SPLM-DC, much to the destabilization of South Sudan. This audaciously insinuate that the two leadersPresident Kiir and Dr. Lamwould have otherwise been on cordial and collaborative political terms if only there was no this supposedly devil called Pagan and the likes near the corridors of power in Juba.
Thus, were Mr. Khoryoam to have his ways and will, he would advise President Kiir, and anyone else who care to listen for that matter, to shun Pagan and the likes by all means and costs necessary.
It is worthwhile to supplementarily state that this is not the first time Mr.Khoryoam is unleashing an unearned attack on one of our war veterans. Following the unfortunate and senseless massacre of innocent civilians of Fangak by the forces of George Athor Deng on February 9th, 2011, Mr. Khoryoam, in one of his penned article in the immediacy of the ill-fated killing, called out Hon. James Hoth Mai, another iconic figure of our liberation struggle, as a coward and a Dinka slave.
Yet, all good citizens of South Sudan very well know that without the sacrificial perseverance and steadfastness to the core principle of liberation struggle by the devil and the coward as Mr. Khoryoam would rather have us believe in Hon. Pagan Amum and Hon. James Hoth Mai respectively; the SPLM/A, that exclusively spearheaded and fought the war of independence, and hence brought the CPA on a golden plate, would have been defeated between the harrowing years of 1991-2005.
CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf met South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Monday during his two-day visit to to the newly formed country. Sharaf was accompanied by a delegation of Egyptian officials, including Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hussein el-Atfi.
Talks were hold around future plans to increase water resources of the Nile Basin, as several other Nile countries recently advanced their request to re-shuffle the percentage of Nile water sharing.
Egyptian and Sudanese delegations agreed upon reviving plans for the construction of the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan. The canal would channel swamp water back into the Nile, amounting to an annual increase of Nile water availability of roughly 4 billion cubic meters.
El-Atfi declared that Egypt contributed $800 thousand to the rehabilitation of three water level measurement stations in Juba and Malaka, South Sudan. The Egyptian Minister also promised to contribute $1.1 million for the rehabilitation of three more stations by the end of the year.
Egyptian agriculture, domestic water consumption and energy supplies are tightly knit with the exploitation of Nile waters. Almost 17 percent of Egyptian Gross Domestic Product and 34 percent of total employment is related to the Agricultural works. Moreover, the Aswan Nile Dam produces some 2.1 gigawatts of power.
Concerns about water supplies in Egypt and Sudan rise as they refuse to take part in talks on the Entebbe Agreement, recently signed by Nile Countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. The agreement offers to re-shuffle Nile Water shares, still regulated by two 1929 and 1959 deals that allow Egypt to exploit some 90 percent of Nile waters.
Egypt negotiates construction plan for Sudanese Nile canal
CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf met South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Monday during his two-day visit to to the newly formed country. Sharaf was accompanied by a delegation of Egyptian officials, including Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hussein el-Atfi.
Talks were hold around future plans to increase water resources of the Nile Basin, as several other Nile countries recently advanced their request to re-shuffle the percentage of Nile water sharing.
Egyptian and Sudanese delegations agreed upon reviving plans for the construction of the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan. The canal would channel swamp water back into the Nile, amounting to an annual increase of Nile water availability of roughly 4 billion cubic meters.
El-Atfi declared that Egypt contributed $800 thousand to the rehabilitation of three water level measurement stations in Juba and Malaka, South Sudan. The Egyptian Minister also promised to contribute $1.1 million for the rehabilitation of three more stations by the end of the year.
Egyptian agriculture, domestic water consumption and energy supplies are tightly knit with the exploitation of Nile waters. Almost 17 percent of Egyptian Gross Domestic Product and 34 percent of total employment is related to the Agricultural works. Moreover, the Aswan Nile Dam produces some 2.1 gigawatts of power.
Concerns about water supplies in Egypt and Sudan rise as they refuse to take part in talks on the Entebbe Agreement, recently signed by Nile Countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. The agreement offers to re-shuffle Nile Water shares, still regulated by two 1929 and 1959 deals that allow Egypt to exploit some 90 percent of Nile waters.
Egypt negotiates construction plan for Sudanese Nile canal - Bikya Masr
An adviser to Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has accused southern leaders of training rebels from Darfur in order to destabilise the north.
Mustafa Ismail Osman was responding to accusations from the south that the north was stirring up trouble ahead of southern independence in July.
He warned the south that its support for Darfur would not be tolerated.
Tensions are again rising between north and south, after years of war which left some 1.5 million people dead.
The SPLM party, which fought Khartoum for decades until a 2005 ceasefire and now runs the south, has recently accused the north of backing rebel groups in the south and suspended talks about secession.
It has dismissed Mr Osman's allegations.
The western region of Darfur, which will remain part of the north, has faced its own rebellion since 2003.
The government of South Sudan is already printing a new currency ahead of the region’s official declaration of independence in July.
South Sudan’s finance and economic planning minister, David Deng Athorbei told reporters in Juba that the new currency is being printed in Europe, by a company he wouldn’t name, and will be held by the printer until July 9th, the day the south’s independence is expected to be declared.
“We are printing a new currency but we are still maintaining some secrecy because we are not yet an independent state,” Athorbei said during the government’s weekly press briefing on Tuesday.
During post-referendum talks in Addis Ababa early this month, delegates from the north’s ruling party, the NCP and the south’s ruling party, the SPLM, agreed that South Sudan will have a its own new currency after independence.
Athorbei said his ministry had signed a contract with a European company that will print the currency adding, “They will release the currency to us on one condition that by the time we are recognized as an independent state by either the United States or Great Britain, then they will release the currency.”
He said the government of South Sudan wanted to have the new currency ready for circulation, just in case the government in the north decides to issue a new currency for the north on the day the south officially secedes.
“We could have waited until our independence and come out openly but that will delay our currency because we do not know, maybe on the 9th the north may issue a new currency,” Athorbei explained.
The issuance of a new currency by the north would tremendously disrupt the south’s economy, which is intertwined with that of the north.
The finance minister described the features of the currency being printed, which he said will be called the South Sudanese pound.
LONDON (Dow Jones)--Sudan's North and South are discussing the possibility of sharing the ownership of oil and gas blocks on both sides of their borders when the country splits this summer, the head of the north's state-oil company Sudapet said Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters on the side of a London natural gas conference, Salah Wabhi, chief executive of Sudapet, said "it is discussed" about the possibility of the northern and southern oil companies sharing stakes in their respective countries.
"They are going to work with us in the North and we are going with them in the South," he said.
In January, an overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted to break away from the North, a split that should be effective July 9.
Wabhi said the committee tasked to discuss the separation on oil matters was set to meet next week.
"We have a good outline but the plans have not been finalized yet," the CEO said.
He said Sudapet has been training staff at its Southern counterpart, Nilepet, for a year.
"A stable South is better for a stable North," Wabhi said.
-By Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 77 601 777 36; [email protected]
April 12, 2011 (WASHINGTON) The new state of South Sudan that will officially see the light in less than three months is exempt from the decade-long sanctions imposed on the entire country, the United States said today.
The outcome was a near unanimous vote in favor of independence that is scheduled to take place at the end of the interim period on July 9.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a press release explaining the sanctions policy with regard to the new state.
"When the new state is formed by Southern Sudan, it will not be included in the territorial boundaries of Sudan nor be governed by the Government of Sudan," OFAC said in its statement.
"Following interagency consultations, OFAC has concluded that the SSR will continue to apply only to Sudan and the Government of Sudan, and that such a new state and its government will not be subject to them".
Washington imposed economic and trade sanctions on Sudan in 1997 because of the North-South civil war and allegations that it is supporting terrorism. In 2006 and 2007 the embargo was strengthened over a separate conflict in Darfur.
OFAC said that this exemption is consistent with executive orders issued by the White House in the past which cited the need for sanctions " to deal with the threat that the policies and actions of the Government of Sudan pose to the national security and foreign policy of the United States".
However, certain aspects of the sanctions may still apply if it involves properties or interests related to the government of Sudan.
"For example, the [Sudan Sanctions Regulations] SSR will prohibit a U.S. company, unless authorized by OFAC, from providing services to the petroleum industry in the new state if those services would benefit the Government of Sudan or relate to the petroleum industry in Sudan, or from transporting exports of petroleum or petrochemical products through Sudan.".
"Further, should a revenue-sharing arrangement between Sudan and the new state result in a situation where the government of the new state makes payments to the Government of Sudan from the sale of Southern Sudanese petroleum, U.S. persons generally could not engage in transactions involving the oil industry in the new state unless authorized by OFAC".
The new directive will likely infuriate Khartoum which has sought relentlessly to have the U.S. lift the sanctions since signing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
Washington has insisted that what it labeled as genocide in Darfur prevented it from revoking the embargo.
However, the U.S. administration said that it has initiated the process that may result in removing Sudans name from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism as a reward for facilitating the Souths referendum and later recognizing its results.
Officials in south Sudan say more than 150 people have been killed in clashes between the region's army and two separate rebel militias.
Army officials say one militia, led by Gabriel Tanginya, surrendered late Sunday after a fierce gunbattle a day earlier. Army spokesman Malaak Ayuen said 57 rebels and seven solders died in the battle.
Officials say Tanginya's militia was being integrated into the army when an argument broke out, sparking the clash in Jonglei state.
Ayuen said more than 100 people died in separate fighting between soldiers and a rebel group led by former general Peter Gadet.
Ayuen said that fighting took place over several days last week as Gadet's men tried to seize towns in Mayom county, in Unity state. Both sides claimed the upper hand in the fighting. Gadet's militia said it killed hundreds of army soldiers.
Hundreds have died in fighting across southern Sudan since January, when the region voted to split from the north. Southern leaders have accused the north of backing the rebellions to destabilize the region ahead of independence in July.
Northern and southern Sudan fought a 21-year civil war that ended with a 2005 peace agreement.
The sides are still trying to resolve issues over borders and the fate of the oil-producing Abyei region, which sits on the north-south border.
WASHINGTON - Southern Sudan, poised to become Africa's newest nation in July, is making progress in creating a business-friendly environment, the World Bank said Tuesday.
"The Government of Southern Sudan is making strides to improve the business environment for small and medium enterprises," the Washington-based institution said in a report on business regulations in Juba, which will be the new nation's capital.
The semi-autonomous region overwhelmingly voted to secede from Sudan in a January referendum after five decades of conflict between the mainly Christian, African south and the predominantly Arab, Muslim north.
The World Bank report, "Doing Business in Juba 2011," cites improvements in eight laws on business registration, operations, and land ownership that have been enacted since the 2005 peace agreement.
Starting a business, for example, takes a relatively swift 15 days in Juba, compared with an average 13.8 days in developed economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the bank noted.
But the cost of starting a business is sky-high -- as much as 250 percent of per-capita income and more than twice the average cost in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report financed by the US Agency for International Development.
Although commercial banks have been established and basic infrastructure is being rehabilitated, the fledgling country must make further progress to achieve a healthy business climate, the World Bank said.
"Reforms that cut red tape, clarify property rights, and streamline regulatory compliance can yield big payoffs," Mierta Capaul, a top private-sector development specialist of the World Bank, said in a statement.
The study, conducted in partnership with the government's ministry of investment, highlighted key areas for improvement, including access to credit which at present is very limited.
"There is an opportunity for Southern Sudan to build the strong foundation necessary for a vibrant formal private sector," Capaul said.
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank's sister institution, said in late April it had received a membership application from South Sudan.
In view of the application, the IMF said it would seek donor contributions for a special $10.6 million trust fund to provide intense technical assistance to the authorities in building the new countrys macroeconomic institutions.
South Sudan stands a good chance of becoming an independent nation peacefully, despite ongoing skirmishes and a build up of military forces on the disputed border between North and South Sudan.
That's the word from U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman who says that he is reasonably optimistic that Sudanese parties can amicably resolve their remaining issues before South Sudan becomes independent on July 9, according to VOA.
Lyman's optimism is guarded because the North and South have continued to exchange antagonistic statements and there is a build up of military forces along the disputed border between the two.
Talks on the separation of the country between the ruling parties of the North and South resumed this week in Addis Ababa.
The major issue is whether or not the oil-rich central Abyei region will be in the South or the North. The two sides must also sort out differences over oil-sharing, currency policy and dividing Sudans external debt.
Lyman, who visited Khartoum and Juba earlier this month, expressed relief that the parties were able to step back from a potential confrontation after a military clash in Abyei May 1. He urged them to withdraw excess forces from the disputed region under a deal mediated by the African Union and United Nations.
Lyman was joined at a State Department briefing by U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah, who visited Sudan to see how the two states can be economically viable. He said the United States will The United States and Norway will host an investor's conference for Southern Sudan and Northern Sudan respectively. The conference will be in Washington, DC, in September.
Shah said would-be investors in the south are encouraged. He said the North, facing a loss of oil income, will have to diversify its economy.
They need to reinvest in agriculture, which continues to be the area of employment for 80 percent of the population. And they need to do that in ways that recognize that trade with the south, whether in the agriculture sector or other sectors, is going to be a critical part of an economic strategy, just as for the south, trade with the north will continue to be quite important for their economic viability, said Shah.
Lyman also visited Sudans troubled western Darfur region and said the U.S. is very disturbed by recent fighting between government forces and Darfur rebels, including government airstrikes.
In response to questions, Lyman said progress on a U.S.-proposed road map to full normalization of U.S. relations with President Omar al-Bashir's government in Khartoum is not frozen because of the Darfur violence but he said events there are terribly relevant.
JUBA, Sudan Southern Sudanese officials appealed for international help Sunday after northern Sudanese troops seized a disputed border town, and the U.N. Security Council and secretary-general demanded an immediate end to military action and withdrawal.
But they stopped short of promising specific action to dislodge northern soldiers from a flash point that threatens to re-ignite the country's civil war.
Northern tanks rolled into the town of Abyei Saturday night, scattering southern troops that were there as part of a joint security unit. The U.N. compound was also hit with mortar fire, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said two U.N. peacekeepers were wounded.
The seizure of Abyei followed an attack on a convoy of northern soldiers by southern forces on Thursday and two days of aerial bombardment of the area by the north.
Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that its hospital in Agok, 40 kilometers (24 miles) south of Abyei, received 42 wounded people late Friday and early Saturday. It said that by Sunday morning nearly the entire population of Abyei had fled and the town was almost empty.
The escalation in violence comes less than two months before South Sudan, which is predominantly ethnic African, is due to become the world's newest country on July 9 after voting overwhelmingly to secede from the Arab-dominated north. The north and south fought a civil war for more than two decades before a 2005 peace deal offered the south the chance for independence.
Under the peace deal, Abyei was also due to have a referendum to decide whether it would remain part of the north or south, but it was canceled amid disagreements over who was eligible to vote.
"The present occupation (by the northern government) is illegal, this is the responsibility of the (U.N.) Security Council to see that they are withdrawn," said Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the south's information minister.
The northern army accused the south of violating the peace agreement and said the northern occupation of the area, including Abyei town, would continue until an accord could be reached that would guarantee security and stability in the region.
The growing possibility of civil war over Sudan's most disputed border zone was confirmed Monday when the South Sudanese army said it would retaliate if the North's army continued to move south.
Sudan's seizure of key border town reignites concerns of civil war Taking care of business in South Sudan Election in Sudan's Southern Kordofan marred by disputed results "Our mission is to protect the borders any step south of this [North-South] border will not be tolerated," says South Sudan's military spokesman Philip Aguer.
On Saturday, northern forces seized the strategic, contested border town of Abyei and Mr. Aguer is warning the North that it is at risk of shattering the fragile 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of war.
Now, in a bid to deescalate tensions, US envoy Princeton Lyman is warning that the North has risked debt relief worth billions of dollars by seizing Abyei.
Mr. Lyman told the Monitor in a Sunday phone interview that it was crucial for the North's President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan President Salva Kiir to meet to discuss the crisis.
With a UN Security Council delegation currently in the country, South Sudanese officials have appealed to the international community to force the withdrawal of the North's army from Abyei.

The Security Council called for the North's withdrawal at a press conference in Khartoum yesterday, but the North has struck a defensive tone and top officials refused to meet with the delegation. Mr. Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes for his role in the unresolved Darfur conflict, was not invited to meet with the delegation.
Roots of the dispute over Abyei
A series of internationally-brokered agreements since 2005 have failed to contain the continually volatile situation in Abyei, which first exploded in 2008 when the North's army razed the town. 
The referendum the people of Abyei were promised in the 2005 peace deal was not held as scheduled in January due to a dispute between the North and South regarding who could vote.
The North's government said that the semi-nomadic, Arab Misseriya people must be allowed to vote, while the soon-to-be independent South Sudanese government rejected that the Misseriya counted as residents.
Abyei is a fertile patch of borderland shared by two populations with different loyalties. The Ngok Dinka people claim the land as their historical homeland, support the Souths government, and hope that Abyei will join the South when the new nation the Republic of South Sudan is officially formed on July 9.
It's not over by a long shot.
NAIROBI, Kenya After seizing a disputed town on the border of the breakaway region of southern Sudan on Saturday, the army of northern Sudan is now facilitating a relatively large influx of nomadic people into the area, according to new United Nations field reports.
United Nations officials said the move could mean that the Sudanese government is trying to ethnically cleanse the area, in a bid to permanently change its demographics and annex the town, Abyei, just weeks before southern Sudan is supposed to split off from the north and form its own country.
As the July target for the souths independence draws near, the battles over Abyei have grown more intense, and the moves by the north have threatened to plunge the two sides into a conflict that diplomats fear could scuttle the carefully choreographed treaty arranging for the south to become the worlds newest state.
One United Nations official said a northern Sudanese general revealed this week that there was a plan to bring 15,000 Misseriya, an Arab and nomadic people, into Abyei in the coming days, which could have a serious impact on Abyeis delicate demographics. Other United Nations officials estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 Misseriya had already entered Abyei town.
The Misseriya have a long history of being used by the Sudanese government as proxy forces, and they live in the vast stretches of desert around Abyei, occasionally coming into Abyei to graze their animals. Abyeis permanent residents, however, are the Ngok Dinka.
Abyei straddles the north-south border and has oil (though a relatively scant amount) and both sides have laid emotional claims to it. A referendum was supposed to be held this year to decide what the people of Abyei wanted, but it was shelved because of disputes over who could vote.
If the Sudanese government is intent on settling thousands of Misseriya in Abyei, the United Nations official said, then this weekends attack on Abyei was planned as ethnic cleansing strategy.
Displace the Ngok Dinka residents and bring in Misseriya, then allow the referendum to take place, said the official, who works closely on Sudan issues but was not authorized to speak publicly.
The strategy is akin to what the Sudanese government, based in Khartoum, did several years ago when it sent notorious janjaweed militias sweeping across the Darfur region, at its behest, to capture land belonging to dispossessed ethnic groups that the government was fighting.
The north has begun to employ the same kind of scorched-earth tactics we saw Khartoum use in Darfur, said Eliza Griswold, who has closely studied Abyei and is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a public-policy institute in Washington. All of these battles are brutal struggles for power and resources of land, oil, even water waged by any means necessary.
NAIROBI, Kenya Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of the breakaway region of southern Sudan, declared on Thursday that he would not go to war over the disputed Abyei territory, which Sudanese tanks and troops seized Saturday.
We will not go back to war. It will not happen, Mr. Kiir said at a news conference in southern Sudans capital, Juba.
Sudan has been increasingly tense over the past few days after northern troops stormed into Abyei and essentially annexed it. The incursion set off looting and pillaging, and United Nations officials have said northern troops might even be helping to ethnically cleanse the area to make it impossible for the original residents to ever return. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and countless huts burned to the ground.
Abyei straddles the border between northern and southern Sudan and is claimed by both sides. With less than two months to go before southern Sudan is to split off to form its own country, fears have been growing that the territorys disputed status could derail a peaceful breakup.
But Mr. Kiir, a former bush fighter known for his patience and reserve, seemed to be trying to ease tensions. Analysts say he has little choice. The north has a better-equipped military, including fighter jets, and it is not clear that southern forces could retake Abyei even if they wanted to. More than that, southern Sudan is so close to achieving a goal that it has fought decades for independence that few expect Mr. Kiir to risk that to hold onto Abyei.
Nevertheless, Mr. Kiir called for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudans president, to pull his forces out of Abyei. He reiterated that the south will become independent on July 9, whether the north recognizes the south or not.
The two sides have also agreed to resume negotiations over the remaining separation issues, including Abyei, on Sunday.
Northern and southern officials have been meeting in Ethiopia over the past few months to hammer out agreements on oil sharing, debt and the disputed border. Analysts said it was a good sign that even after the takeover of Abyei, the two sides were still willing to negotiate with each other.
TURALEI, Sudan Ayak Adiang and her children will soon run out of food but only because Adiang opened her home to villagers running from violence.
Tens of thousands of Sudanese are fleeing from the contested north-south border region of Abyei, and the top U.S. official in the region warned Friday of a humanitarian crisis over the north's invasion.
Food and fuel are running short. There is not nearly enough shelter.
Adiang's single-room house is now bursting with people. Martha Abiem Deng arrived empty-handed with two relatives and a dozen children between them after fleeing fighting in Abyei. Adiang took them in.
"They will consume the little we have," said Adiang as she sat near the dark, pungent hut that serves as her kitchen.
All Adiang has left is a pot of meat and three bowls of pounded porridge. Turalei's market is empty after an influx frightened families arrived over the past few days, almost doubling the town's population. The only things still for sale are cigarettes and telephone chargers.
County Commissioner Dominic Deng said Friday that up to 40,000 people have arrived in Turalei, a town just south of Abyei. He said at least 80,000 people have fled Abyei, a zone about the size of Connecticut which northern Sudan invaded last weekend.
On a visit to Turalei on Friday, the top U.S. official in Southern Sudan, Barrie Walkley, said "we have a perfect storm" creating a humanitarian crisis. Sudan's north is blockading border crossing points, preventing food and fuel from getting to the south. Militias are attacking southern forces, and the northern army displaced tens of thousands of people by invading Abyei, he said.
Lise Grande, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Southern Sudan, said there are not enough stocks in the area to supply all the fleeing families with food and shelter. The fuel shortage is greatly hampering relief efforts, she said.
When northern Sudanese troops seized the disputed border town of Abyei last month, it was a sign that the fragile six-year-old peace between North and South Sudan was teetering on the brink. Some called it the first shots of Sudan's next civil war, following the two-decade-long war that killed an estimated 2 million people.
Like the more well-known conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, the North-South civil war began as a result of local disputes, a feeling by many southerners that the Islamist-dominated northern government was neglecting its duties to the South. And between the two sides, Abyei rose as a symbolic prize a Kashmir or a Jerusalem that must be fought for and defended at all costs.
Now, Abyei could pull the divided nation back into war just weeks before South Sudan officially secedes on July 9. "It's probably the worst-case scenario," said a United Nations humanitarian worker not authorized to speak on the record. The UN estimates at least 30,000 have fled Abyei and surrounding villages as a result of recent fighting. According to some local officials, that number is closer to 80,000.
Speaking during a recent trip to Khartoum the capital of northern Sudan representatives of the UN Security Council called on the North to withdraw troops from Abyei. But the regime of President Omar al-Bashir who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur is digging in its heels. "Abyei belongs to North Sudan," he said emphatically, days after his troops seized Abyei.
"[Mr. Bashir] is doing this because he's looking at the oil we have and [at] our productive land," says Kuei Deng, who fled Abyei with her daughter, daughter-in-law, and several grandchildren. "That's why he's killing us, to make us leave the land. We believe we are southerners. We are Christians. That's why they are doing this."
MORE
KHARTOUM/JUBA, Sudan When northern troops overran Abyei two weeks ago, observers feared Sudan was sliding back to war. This now seems unlikely, but analysts warn that Khartoum will continue to assert itself aggressively ahead of southern independence.
Despite pressure from the international community to pull back, and strong criticism from Washington, the Sudanese government remains defiant, raising the the likelihood of a grim stalemate when the south secedes on July 9.
Roger Middleton, Sudan expert at the Chatham House think-tank, says the north's occupation of the bitterly disputed border region had clear objectives, in the context of the north and south negotiating their future relationship.
"I think there's two things going on. One is taking a strong line with the south, and trying to make sure that... when this new relationship begins, it's Sudan that is the powerful partner," he said.
"But then there's also a shoring up of positions within the regime in Khartoum," he added, following the "embarrassment" of losing the south, where around 75 percent of the country's oil revenues lie, in January's independence referendum.
At the time, southerners voted overwhelmingly to split with their former civil war enemies in the north.
Many are now furious at the northern army's occupation of Abyei, which prompted a mass exodus of the region's pro-southern Dinka Ngok residents, but few would let it jeopardise their hard-fought independence, just weeks away.
Salva Kiir, the president of the nation in waiting, said just days after northern troops and tanks rolled into Abyei town on May 21 that there would be "no return to war".
The United Nations says at least 60,000 people from the Abyei region have fled the violence, sparked off by a deadly attack on a northern army convoy two days earlier, while the south claims many more have been displaced.
"The south will become independent on July 9 whether the north recognises the south or not," Kiir added.
Observers say his conciliatory tone is pragmatic, since the ex-guerilla southern Sudan People?s Liberation Army (SPLA) is in no position to repel the better equipped northern army.
Retaliating over Abyei could also encourage the north to abort the 2005 peace agreement at the eleventh hour, a deal that ended the devastating 22-year north-south conflict and is key to guaranteeing the south's independence.
Both sides strongly claim the poor but fertile region for different reasons.
The Bahr al-Arab, or Kiir river as it is known to southerners, that runs through Abyei is a crucial destination for Misseriya Arab nomads during their seasonal migration, when they seek pastures and fresh water for their cattle.
The Misseriya were a key proxy militia of the northern army during the civil war, who are thought to have filled the vaccuum left by the fleeing Dinka Ngok, while the river has become a frontline between northern and southern troops.
