Mujahadeen Displace 50,000 Southern Sudanese

CSI Delivers Emergency Humanitarian Aid

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Over 50,000 Black African Southern Sudanese, mainly Christians, fled their homes in the borderlands between Northern and Southern Sudan on the 29th and 30th of December, according to government officials in Southern Sudan. The immediate cause was fierce fighting between Khartoum-backed Baggara Arab militias and the
Sudan People’s Liberation Army, near the settlement of Grinty on the Kiir River (Bahr El Arab River).

An appeal for emergency humanitarian aid has been issued by the SPLA’s Governor of Northern Bahr El Ghazal State, Madut Biar. Food, shelter, mosquito nets and blankets are urgently required, according to Biar. Most of the displaced are from the town of Majok Yith Thiou and its environs, in Aweil East County. The displaced have sought refuge in nearby towns and villages in Southern Sudan.

CSI is immediately dispatching 1,000 survival kits, each containing plastic sheeting, a blanket, a mosquito net, a water container, a cooking pot, a sickle and fishing hooks, to the displaced.

The fighting near Grinty first erupted on the 21st of December when Baggara Arab militiamen attacked an SPLA garrison following the SPLA’s refusal to allow armed Arabs to enter Southern Sudan with their cattle.

A series of skirmishes culminated in a great pitched battle on the 29th of December. Over 100 soldiers are believed to have been killed. This battle, combined with intelligence that the Baggara Arab militias were poised to attack civilian centers in Southern Sudan, prompted the flight of the population from Majok Yith Thiou.

Sudan’s President, Gen. Omer Bashir, ordered the remobilization of Mujahadeen (Holy Warrior) militias on the 17th of November, 2007 in response to the deteriorating relations between his National Congress Party (the Muslim Brotherhood) and their SPLM coalition partners. The Mujahadeen are openly recruiting troops and collecting funds in Baggara Arab towns for offensives against Black Africans in the South (New Sudan Vision, December 30, 2007). Reports of racist violence against Black Africans in the
borderland area, including cases of murder, rape of women and castration of men, are circulating widely in Southern Sudan (Press Statement, Aweil Community in Juba, December 31, 2007).

The borderland fighting threatens to destroy the fragile January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of Sudan and the SPLA.