South Sudan’s Borders Compromised by North

Sudanese wait in line to vote on referendum in January

As South Sudan gears up to become Africa’s 54th nation, the region
continues to face threats from north Sudan. On Tuesday the Government
of South Sudan accused north Sudan’s government of deliberately
closing all commercial routes to the south.

South Sudan will officially separate from Sudan on July 9 and
become its own nation, after 98 percent of eligible voters voted in
favor of a secession in a January referendum. Sudan, however, is still a country
of people groups oppressed, marginalized and killed by their own
government.

The border between the north and south are under threat Islamist
regime in Khartoum, led by Sudanese President Omar al Bashir. Bashir,
who is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for war
crimes, has announced that Sudan will be a Shari’a-ruled Islamic
state after the separation of the south, and the indigenous cultures
and languages of Sudan’s people will be eliminated.

“Khartoum is an egregious
violator of human rights and has broken the covenants that it had
made in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement,”
says Faith
McDonnell, director of Religious
Liberty Programs and of the Church Alliance for a New Sudan at the
Institute
on Religion & Democracy.

United
Nations spokseman Kouider Zerrouk told Bloomberg
that 7,000
civilians are taking refuge near the UN compound in the capital of
Southern Kordofan state, Kadugli, where there were heavy clashes
Wednesday.

“The
government in Khartoum is not happy to see people of South Sudan
living in peace. It says one thing and does another. It is not
sleeping. It is working day and night to sabotage peace and
development in the area. It has adopted detrimental policies,”
Stephen Dhieu Dau, minister of trade and industry in the Government
of South Sudan told Sudan
Tribune
on Monday.

Zerrouck
said the bodies of four policemen and two civilians were brought to
the Kadugli police hospital after fighting Tuesday.

The
conflicts have sparked concerns that the two-decade civil war, which
ended in a peace agreement in 2005, may start up again.

“Currently
Khartoum has 50,000 Sudan Armed Forces and 20,000 Popular Defense
Force militiamen stationed in the Nuba Mountains and has threatened
war,” McDonnell said. “Khartoum imposed another indicted war
criminal, Ahmed Haroun, as Nuba Mountains governor, rigging the
election to defeat the popular SPLM candidate, Commander Abdelaziz
Adam al Hilu.”

Sudanese
from Abyei, Nuba Mountains, Darfur, Beja land in Eastern Sudan, Blue
Nile and the far north of Nubia, joined by Southern Sudanese and
other concerned citizens will protest the atrocities being committed
against the Sudanese people in a rally on Saturday, 1 p.m., at
Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.