Friday, June 08, 2007

Report From Sudan: Many Refugees are Returning to Southern Sudan This Week


I am most grateful to know someone who is helping me understand the situation in Sudan and plan to write more about it as I can grasp it well enough to pass along.
For now, two things are currently happening there: first, President Bush has ordered economic sanctions on Sudan, and second, many refugees who left Southern Sudan years ago because of civil war and genocide by Arab Muslims on Christians, are now returning to the south because of a 2005 peace treaty:
This week, June 7, 2007, many refugees are returning to Southern Sudan.
An estimated four million people fled southern Sudan, during Sudan's 21-year civil war between the nation's ruling Islamist regime and southern rebels. It was during this time small boys orphaned during the horrendous assault on their villages and families in the south walked to Ethiopia and were named the Lost Boys of Sudan.

In 2005, a peace agreement ended the war, paving the way for the return to Southern Sudan of the largest refugee population in the world.

The day begins at dawn. The honking horns signal that it is time for many refugees to leave.
Men, women and children hurry from their tents outside of Khartoum in the Muslim north, to get on board their assigned buses.

Three hundred and seventy one southern Sudanese began their journey home to the south, Thursday.

Twenty years ago, two million southerners left their villages and came north to Khartoum (where radical Arab Muslims now rule) to escape fighting during Sudan's civil war and genocide.

Here in the north, they faced racial and religious prejudice, which kept them confined largely to impoverished ghetto areas.

Southern Sudanese are African Christians or Animists.

Northern Sudanese are Muslims and pride themselves on their Arab heritage.
Suspicion and hostility are rife between Muslims and Christians in Sudan, as now in all parts of the world.
More later.

1 comment:

Bob's Blog said...

A far cry from our day-to-day problems!