Sudan & S. Sudan: Fiji's Merelea Dileba Drotini will be the second female going for the UNISFA in Abyei

UN peacekeepers risk their lives for people in countries far from home. They are well respected. Any attack on a peacekeeper constitutes a war crime. 

From FBC News, Fiji
By Ema Ganivatu
Dated Wednesday, January 3, 2024, 5:44 AM

ASP Drotini leaving for UN Mission

Acting Commissioner of Police Juki Fong Chew (left), Acting Assistant Superintendent of Police Merelea Dileba Drotini 

[Source: Fiji Police Force/ Facebook]

Officer in Charge of Criminal Records Office, Acting Assistant Superintendent of Police Merelea Dileba Drotini will be the second female going for the United Nations Interim Security Forces in Abyei.

Acting Commissioner of Police Juki Fong Chew congratulated ASP Drotini for her appointment and reminded her of the image of the Fiji Police Force.

Chew has also advised ASP Drotini to make the most of any training chances during her time in the mission areas.

ASP Drotini will be departing our shores for UNISFA this Friday.

View original: https://www.fbcnews.com.fj/news/asp-drotini-leaving-for-un-mission/

ENDS

Sudan & South Sudan: Six killed in disputed Abyei. MP calls for UNISFA to protect Abyei people in Abyei Box

STRADDLING an ill-defined border between Sudan and South Sudan, oil-rich Abyei has been claimed by both countries since Juba declared independence from Khartoum in 2011. 

Tabitha Chol, an MP representing Abyei in the Council of States, alleged of a systematic scheme, targeting of constitutional post holders from Abyei by elements from the neighbouring Twic County. She said a former minister from Abyei was also killed in a similar ambush in November last year. 

“We are saying that the issue of Abyei and Twic is taking a different turn, it is like there are invisible hands behind the issue of land. We call on the South Sudan Government to swiftly form an investigation committee to probe the killing of the deputy administrator and the former minister,” Tabitha said. She further called on the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA) to protect the people of Abyei within the Abyei Box.

Read more in the four articles here below.

From Reuters
Reporting by Waakhe Simon Wudu

Writing by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Jan Harvey
Dated Monday, January 1, 2024, 9:39 AM GMT - here is a copy in full:

Six killed in disputed region bordering Sudan, South Sudan

JUBA, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Six people including a senior local administrator were killed in an ambush by armed men in the Abyei region claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, local officials said.

The oil-rich region experiences frequent bouts of violence, where rival factions of the Dinka ethnic group - Twic Dinka from South Sudan's neighbouring Warrap State, and Ngok Dinka from Abyei - are locked in a dispute over the location of an administrative boundary.

Abyei Deputy Chief Administrator Noon Deng and his team came under attack along the road from Abyei to Aneet town when they were returning from an official visit to Rummamer county, where they were celebrating the New Year, government officials said.

"His driver and two bodyguards plus two people of national security were all killed," Tereza Chol, a South Sudanese lawmaker, told Reuters.

Bulis Koch, the information minister for Abyei Administrative Area, blamed the Sunday evening attack on armed youth from Twic County of Warrap State, and said the bodies had not been retrieved as of Monday morning.

His counterpart in the Warrap State William Wol said it was still early "to point fingers".

The incident is the latest in a region where dozens were killed in ethnic clashes in November.

Straddling an ill-defined border between Sudan and South Sudan, Abyei has been claimed by both countries since Juba declared independence from Khartoum in 2011.

It has a special administrative status, governed by an administration comprising officials appointed by both countries.

South Sudan erupted into civil war shortly after independence, which pitted President Salva Kiir and his allies against his Vice President Riek Machar.

A peace agreement signed in 2018 is largely holding, but the transitional government has been slow to unify the various factions of the military.

Reporting by Waakhe Simon Wudu; Writing by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Jan Harvey

View original: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/six-killed-disputed-region-bordering-sudan-south-sudan-2024-01-01/

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Related Reports

Radio Tamazuj - January 2, 2024 

Juba: MPs want inquest into Abyei administrator’s killing - here is an excerpt and map:

Tabitha Chol, an MP representing Abyei in the Council of States, alleged of a systematic scheme, targeting of constitutional post holders from Abyei by elements from the neighbouring Twic County. She said a former minister from Abyei was also killed in a similar ambush in November last year. “We are saying that the issue of Abyei and Twic is taking a different turn, it is like there are invisible hands behind the issue of land. We call on the South Sudan Government to swiftly form an investigation committee to probe the killing of the deputy administrator and the former minister,” Tabitha said. She further called on the United Nations Interim Force for Abyei (UNISFA) to protect the people of Abyei within the Abyei Box.

View full story: https://radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/juba-mps-want-inquest-into-abyei-administrators-killing

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Radio Tamazuj - January 1, 2024

Opinion piece by Morris Kuol Yoll - here are some excerpts and map:

Abyei Box is a distortion of the boundary between Sudan and South Sudan

The northern boundary, known as the “Kordofan-Barh el Gazal boundary,” refers to the boundary between the Sudan and South Sudan north of Abyei. This boundary separates Ngok and Messirya. The Southern boundary between Barh el Gazal and Kordofan, as of 1 January 1956, is known as the Kiir River and separates Ngok of Abyei and Twic County. 

The boundary between Twic Dinka of Barh el Gazal and Ngok Dinka of Kordofan, Sudan, was left as it is according to The Hague's arbitration awards ruling of 22 July 2009, as stipulated in the following document: “In respect of the ABC Experts’ decision that “[t]he southern boundary shall be the Kordofan – Bahr el-Ghazal – Upper Nile boundary as it was defined on 1 January 1956,” the ABC Experts did not exceed their mandate” (Report of International Arbitration Awards, P.413).

The Southern Sudan Boundary Background report recommends that the Southern boundary between Twic and Ngok be resolved after 2011 and recommends that physical landmarks be developed to help when the demarcation of this boundary comes forth in the future.

The ABC's "Southern Sudan Boundary Background" report does not refer to the map of the Sudan, which indicates the 1 January 1956 boundary running through the Kiir River, but another map (the current Abyei Box) that crossed the Kiir River with undefined physical boundaries, and a map with no "topography” or landmarks, a map that according to the ABC report could pose problems when the time to demarcate the boundary between Twic County and Abyei Special Administration arrives.

View full story: https://radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/opinion-abyei-box-is-a-distortion-of-the-boundary-between-sudan-and-south-sudan

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Sudan Watch - January 10, 2009

Former Wall Street banker Philippe Heilberg gambles on a warlord's continuing control of 400,000 hectares of land in South Sudan (Update 1) - here are two excerpts:

There are few regions in Africa as remote and undeveloped as southern Sudan. Unity state, where Philippe Heilberg says he has secured a huge tract of arable land, is inaccessible even by south Sudan's standards.

Jarch Management Group is linked to Jarch Capital, a US investment company that counts on its board former state department and intelligence officials, including Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador and expert on Africa, who acts as vice-chairman; and Gwyneth Todd, who was an adviser on the Middle East and north Africa at the Pentagon and under Bill Clinton at the White House.

View full story: https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2009/01/former-wall-street-banker-philippe.html

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South Sudan: IOM, UNHCR concerned about risks relocating refugees & returnees from border areas

“This tragic and senseless incident puts into question our entire strategy to relocate refugees arriving in South Sudan through Abyei to a safe location in Wedweil, where we opened a new settlement to receive refugees fleeing the Sudan crisis,” said Marie-Helene Verney, UNHCR Country Representative, who is also currently serving as the acting Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan. Read more.

From Radio Tamazuj
Dated Friday, 15 December 2023 - here is a copy in full:

IOM, UNHCR concerned about risks in relocating refugees and returnees from border areas

Returnees and refugees from Sudan in Renk, Upper Nile State. (File photo)

(JUBA CITY) - Two separate incidents have brought to the forefront the major challenges humanitarian agencies are facing in South Sudan, a joint IOM and UNHCR statement said earlier in the week.

In the first incident, two refugees were tragically killed in an attack against a convoy organized by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) transporting Sudanese refugees from Abyei to the Wedweil refugee settlement. On the same day, a boat facilitated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) began taking on water due to high winds and rough water – all on board were moved to different boats and proceeded safely to Malakal.

According to the UN agencies, the two incidents highlight the considerable challenges that humanitarian partners are facing trying to help refugees and South Sudanese who are fleeing the fighting in Sudan to reach safety.

The boat began taking on water on Wednesday morning as it was attempting to leave the port of Kodok, in Upper Nile State. Local authorities and humanitarian partners immediately launched a rescue operation and all on board are now accounted for and safe, the joint statement said.

Since the start of the Sudan crisis in April, IOM has moved more than 105,000 people out of Renk by river and another 59,000 by plane to their final destinations across the country.

“Transport by river remains the only viable option to move returning South Sudanese arriving through the Joda Border Crossing Point to Malakal, and from there to their final destination,” said John McCue, IOM Chief of Mission in South Sudan. “The risks and challenges are huge but keeping people in Renk is not an option as reception sites are overcrowded and provision of basic services is stretched to breaking point.”

In the other incident, two refugees were abducted on Wednesday morning as they were crossing Twic County, Warrap State on their way from Abyei to the refugee settlement of Wedweil, near Aweil in Northern Bahr-e-Ghazal State onboard a UNHCR convoy. The vehicle carrying the two refugees was surrounded by armed youth who forced all onboard to alight and abducted two men, one 21-year-old, and the other - 62, both from Sudan’s Blue Nile State. Local authorities later reported that both of them had been found dead. The rest of the convoy made its way safely to Wedweil.

“This tragic and senseless incident puts into question our entire strategy to relocate refugees arriving in South Sudan through Abyei to a safe location in Wedweil, where we opened a new settlement to receive refugees fleeing the Sudan crisis,” said Marie-Helene Verney, UNHCR Country Representative, who is also currently serving as the acting Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan.

“Humanitarian partners have taken the lion's share of the immensely challenging job of moving people in distress who arrived at the South Sudan border fleeing for safety, however, the responsibility of ensuring that returnees, refugees, and humanitarian workers are safe lies firmly with the South Sudan’s Government” she added.

Both agencies called for renewed efforts from the Government to facilitate transportation of refugees and returnees to safe locations.

According to the UN, more than 438,000 people have arrived in South Sudan to escape the conflict in Sudan since April, of which 365,000 South Sudanese and 71,000 refugees. More than 24,000 refugees are stuck in Renk to the refugee camps in Maban County, Upper Nile State due to the current conditions. The road from Maban to Renk has been destroyed by the rains and while UNHCR is currently working on repairs, it has been requesting that the relevant ministries, as well as the private sector, take their share of the works.

 

View original:

https://www.radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/iom-unhcr-concerned-about-risks-in-relocating-refugees-and-returnees-from-border-areas

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S. Sudan: 1 killed, 4 wounded at Abyei-Twic border

From Radio Tamazuj
Dated Thursday, 14 December 2023 - here is a full copy:

One killed, four wounded at Abyei-Twic border

The authorities of Warrap State's Twic County and Abyei Special Administrative Area (ASAA) on Wednesday traded accusations over fresh fighting along their border in which one person died and four others were injured.

The fighting happened in Malual Aleu village in the Athony area.

Twic County Commissioner Simon Aguek accused armed Ngok Dinka youth from Abyei of attacking the youth in his county.

“Armed youth from Abyei clashed with armed youth from Twic in Malual Aleu village which is claimed by Twic County and Abyei and one person from my side was killed and four people were wounded on Tuesday and the injured are admitted in Mayen Abun Hospital,” he said.

Aguek also said that two Twic youths who were traveling in a vehicle belonging to the UNHCR were kidnapped by the Abyei youth.

“I am now in the meeting with UNHCR officials who want to know the whereabouts of two youths who were taken out of their car by youth suspected to be from Abyei,” he added.

Meanwhile, Abyei Information Minister Bulis Koch accused armed youth from Twic County of erecting an illegal checkpoint in Abyei which angered the local youth.

“On Tuesday there were clashes between our armed youth and those of Twic because they (Twic youth) erected another illegal checkpoint in Athony area near Malual Aleu village and Abyei area youth clashed with them (Twic armed youth) and four youth from Twic County were shot and Abyei youth never experienced any injuries or losses, he said. “What Twic did was bad because they beheaded two youths from Abyei during the past incident in Ayuok village and money was put in their mouths.  It is something inhuman and this was known when Twic armed youth posted it on Social media. I will share these pictures with you today.”

Minister Koch also accused the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) and SSPDF of not protecting the civilians of Abyei.

"That was why the civil society organizations in Abyei protested and called for the removal of the UNISFA commander because they respond only after an incident or when fighting has stopped,” he stated. “The same thing is also done by the SSPDF. They are near where two groups of youth clashed and they did not come out to stop the fighting.”

View original: https://radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/one-killed-four-wounded-at-abyei-twic-border

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Abyei in Sudan & South Sudan: UNISFA peacekeepers are on high alert to ensure peace and security in Abyei

Today, @UNISFA_1 military observers carried out routine vehicle and foot patrols across villages in southern #Abyei. UNISFA peacekeepers are on high alert as they ensure peace and security in #Abyei. pic.twitter.com/ck6TJTWBXM

— UNISFA (@UNISFA_1) December 7, 2023

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Related

Map showing oil rich Abyei Area on the border of Sudan and South Sudan:

The Abyei Area (Arabic: منطقة أبيي) is an area of 10,546 km² or 4,072 sq mi^[2] on the border between South Sudan and Sudan that has been accorded "special administrative status" by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict (Abyei Protocol) in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War.^[3] The capital of the Abyei Area is Abyei Town. Under the terms of the Abyei Protocol, the Abyei Area is considered, on an interim basis, to be simultaneously part of both the Republic of South Sudan and Republic of Sudan, effectively a condominium. -Wikipedia

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THIS ACLED map shows Abyei near E. Darfur and W. Kordofan in Sudan:

Source: UN OCHA Sudan Humanitarian Update 7 Dec 2023

To view a larger map visit the original report and click on

Download attachment

(PDF | 1.08 MB) 

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Sudan

ACLED update on Sudan situation 28 Oct - 24 Nov 2023

'Unravelling the conflict dynamics in Darfur' 

https://acleddata.com/2023/12/01/sudan-situation-update-december-2023-unraveling-the-conflict-dynamics-in-darfur/

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South Sudan

UN OCHA latest report on South Sudan

'Severity of humanitarian conditions and number of people in need'

Download report with map: https://www.unocha.org/south-sudan

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Abyei Area on the border of Sudan and South Sudan

ACLED analysis on Abyei Area March 2023

'Deadly violence in the disputed Abyei Area'

https://acleddata.com/2023/03/17/sudan-march-2023-situation-update-deadly-violence-in-the-disputed-abyei-area/

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Sudan’s Dangerous Descent Into Warlordism

From TIME.com IDEAS

BY KHOLOOD KHAIR AND ASMAHAN AKAM

Kholood Khair is a Sudanese policy analyst and founding director of Confluence Advisory. She is now based in London. 

Asmahan Akam is a Sudanese civil society activist currently living in Boston.

Dated Thursday, 7 December 2023 12:46 PM EST - here is a copy in full:

Sudan’s Dangerous Descent Into Warlordism

The burned remnants of an MSF health post destroyed in fighting at Wunpeth village, Abyei, Sudan, August 2023.

Sean Sutton—Panos Pictures/Redux

Like millions of people from Sudan, we have seen our families suffer in the wake of a devastating war that began in April. No one in Sudan has been spared.

Both of us are lucky to have escaped with our lives but we have relatives who were killed in the fighting, kidnapped at gunpoint, and whose homes were destroyed. We receive WhatsApp messages from family members who are internally displaced, stuck at the borders or, for those able to leave Sudan, living precarious lives in neighboring countries without rights or legal status. 

For the past nine months, the vicious war being fought in our country has been far from the attention of a distracted world. Well before the current Israel-Hamas war came to dominate headlines, the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was a mere footnote on the international agenda. And yet Sudan stands on the edge of an abyss.

UNISFA peacekeepers bring wounded Misseriya people and their families from north Abyei for treatment at the Ameth Bek Hospital, August, 2023.Sean Sutton—Panos Pictures/Redux

Rival bids for power between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the SAF leader, and RSF counterpart Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, underpins the war. Sudan had been run by a council of generals, including these two erstwhile allies, after a 2021 coup brought an end to civilian rule in the wake of the 2019 pro-democracy movement that deposed longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. Tensions came to a head on April 15 when fighting broke out in our home city of Khartoum, and it quickly spread to other regions of the country.

Some 10,000 people have since been killed, almost certainly a vast undercount. With at least 6 million people already driven from their homes, Sudan has the world’s largest displaced population, and the number is growing by the day as fighting intensifies.

In Darfur in particular, the situation is alarming. The RSF—which evolved from the Janjaweed militia that earned worldwide infamy during the Darfur crisis of two decades ago—has conducted a brutal campaign that is on the verge of securing full control of the region.

Rampaging across Darfur on motorcycles, horses, or pick-up trucks, the RSF and allied Arab militias have been accused of ethnically motivated killings against the Massalit and other non-Arab communities; indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against civilians; and widespread sexual violence and rape. (The U.S. government recently determined that both the SAF and RSF have committed war crimes, and that the RSF has committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.) In early November, the RSF and its allies reportedly killed at least 800 people in an attack on just one town—Ardamata in West Darfur province.

A senior U.N. official in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, wasn’t exaggerating when she said, “What is happening is verging on pure evil.” A group of U.N. experts called “on both parties to the conflict to end violations of humanitarian and human rights law,” but they expressed “specific concern” with the RSF’s “brutal and widespread use of rape and other forms of sexual violence.”

Mariam Hassam, 20, takes a shower using water from a hole in the dry valley on Sept. 20, 2023 in Metche, Chad. More than 420,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to neighboring Chad.

Abdulmonam Eassa—Getty Images

An aerial view of makeshift shelters of Sudanese, who fled the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, in Adre, Chad, July 20, 2023. 

Zohra Bensemra—Reuters

Sudan is a large country, strategically located, and its speedy disintegration is already having spillover effects throughout the Horn of Africa, Sahel, and Red Sea regions. Major refugee flows into neighboring countries such as Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia are ongoing, while the fighting in Darfur is causing fallout across the border in Chad.

Peace talks that concluded last month in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia—convened by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and a bloc of East African nations—might have seemed like a positive step toward peace. But it has mostly provided the warring parties with cover for further violence as the U.N. remains gridlocked. The Security Council has not passed a substantive resolution on Sudan since the war began.

Meanwhile, regional powers have picked sides. Egypt, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia support the SAF while the UAE, a U.N. Security Council member, backs the RSF in seeming violation of the body’s own arms embargo on Darfur, first enacted in 2004 and just renewed (with a yes vote from the UAE) in March 2023. (The UAE has denied supplying weapons or ammunition to the RSF.)

Awar is sent to hospital in an ambulance from Gongoi IDP camp where she had twins the previous night. She is feeling very weak and unwell and has lost a lot of blood and is still bleeding. August, 2023. 

Sean Sutton—Panos Pictures/Redux

In the wake of last month’s failed peace talks in Jeddah, the international community needs to step in and prioritize genuine peace talks, a durable ceasefire, increased humanitarian access, and a surge of resources for aid and protection efforts. The U.N.’s Sudan response plan requires $2.6 billion; it is about a third funded.

We, like so many Sudanese, have been forced to flee our country, leaving behind the land and people that we love. The Khartoum that we called home and know is gone. Bodies are piling up in the streets, in some cases eaten by stray dogs. Those who are too sick or weak to move await death as heavy shelling surrounds them.

But our nation is worth saving. There are everyday Sudanese at the forefront of the humanitarian response working to keep communities safe and weaving back the social fabric that this war has torn asunder. We, and they, need the world to join the struggle to end this war before it is too late.

View original: https://time.com/6342732/sudan-burhan-hemedti-descent-warlordism/

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