Killing Me Softly in South Sudan

by Michael Bear · 2009-07-13 06:45:00 UTC
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The deadliest region of Sudan isn't Darfur - instead, it's Jonglei State in South Sudan, where inter-tribal clashes killed more than 1,000 people in March and April alone.

Casualty calculus is always somewhat problematic, but illuminating nonetheless - by way of comparison, 143 people were killed in Darfur over the same two-month period.

Relatively little has been written about the violence in South Sudan, but the stakes are incredibly high.  As the Enough Campaign recently explained:

"It is increasingly evident that there is a widespread breakdown of peace in southern Sudan, and that both the North and the South are bracing for war in 2011, regardless of concurrent recommitments to implementation of the faltering Comprehensive Peace Agreement [CPA.]"

Though there are rumors that Khartoum is stoking the violence in order to destabilize the South, there's a lack of hard evidence.  (For intra-Sudan dynamics, think Cain and Abel.  Albeit heavily armed.)

Sudan scholar Douglas Johnson - author of the fascinating if somewhat dry book The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars - recently explained that the violence runs back to the north-south civil war, when each side armed various proxy militias.

Failure of the CPA has the potential to dwarf any violence over the past few years in Darfur.  The north-south civil war lasted from 1983 until the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, killing roughly 1.9 million civilians.

The next big test - "milestone" if you're feeling optomistic, "hurdle" if you're not - for the CPA comes in the next few weeks, when the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague rules on the disputed boundary in Abyei, an oil-rich region along the north-south border.

Oh, and erratic rains might trigger a food crisis in Jonglei and three other states in South Sudan.  For a comprehensive look at the humanitarian situation in South Sudan, please see the most recent UN OCHA humanitarian action weekly report.

On a happier note - The Fugees.

[Civilians fleeing the fighting in South Sudan - Photo from Getty Images]

Michael Bear
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