Sudan: "The predominantly Christian and traditionalist black African Southern Sudan has seen almost nonstop war with the Arabic-speaking and Muslim North since the country’s independence from Britain in 1956. Two million people are thought to have died in recent years in the battered South, an impoverished land.... Oil added a new intensity to the conflict in the ‘90s, a period which also saw the rise of the Islamist regime of Omar al Bashir. He’s since been indicted by the International Criminal Court for his role in the Darfur conflict in Western Sudan. But it’s the enduring North-South war that got the attention of evangelical Protestants in America....

      "There remain sensitive issues that could inflame tensions or worse: drawing borders, deciding on the rights of Southerners living in the North and vice versa, and a critical permanent oil-sharing revenue agreement still needs to be negotiated. The new South Sudan, should that nation emerge, will be one of the poorest on earth. Paved roads, hospitals, and schools are virtually nonexistent, and the peace remains precarious. But all those worries have been cast aside by the euphoria of this moment..." See Suffering with Jesus

After Sudan Vote, U.S. to Face Fresh Challenges: "Sudan is a top U.S. foreign-policy priority in Africa, seen as a bulwark in a volatile east and central Africa beset by terror threats and rebel groups. Should Sudan return to conflict, it could cost thousands of lives, set back the region's nascent economic progress and cost as much as $100 billion over a decade in peacekeeping efforts and regional economic losses....

     "Even if the south secedes as expected, the north and south must still decide on how to share oil revenues. Production and concessions in the oil-rich south have long been controlled by the north, and it will take time before the south is able to assume control of the business or open its doors to Western companies. An independent south Sudan would depend on U.S. and other Western support to build its infrastructure, which is now almost nonexistent.  Other unresolved issues include ethnic divisions within the south's own territory as well as the fate of Abyei, a region disputed between north and south where territorial clashes between rival ethnic groups broke out this week....

     "The south still struggles to provide basic services for its people—about 90% live on less than $1 a day. For now, much of the government budget is spent on salaries and equipment for its security forces, which it views as essential to keeping the peace."

Voting on historic South Sudan referendum ends: "Seeking peace and freedom, Achol Magwen, 60, spent much of her life on the run, eating only leaves to survive amid the violent clashes in Sudan. But on her final walk to freedom, which is what the south Sudan referendum has come to be known, Magwen sat near the front of a chartered bus with a wide smile, ringing a handbell.

     "She was one of about 100 southern Sudanese refugees from Rochester and Austin that made the 350-mile trip to Omaha, Neb., together by bus last Sunday to vote in the referendum that they hope will bring peace by dividing the civil war-torn nation into two countries." [Notice the woman waving a cross] Please pray for Sudan

Sudanese refugees in the US vote on independence: "Thousands of jubilant Sudanese refugees living in the United States turned polling places into victory parties Sunday with chanting, singing and flag-waving as they voted on a historic referendum that could separate their homeland, Southern Sudan, from the north.... Many of those voting are among the 3,800 war orphans known as the Lost Boys of Sudan. Mach Makuei is one of the Lost Boys. He spent eight years in a refugee camp in Kenya before moving the United States..."

Please continue to pray for Sudan: Southern Sudan's referendum inspires hope of a better life: "Her family is originally from a remote area of southern Sudan, but she grew up in Sudan's capital Khartoum. '...Fearing being cut off forever from a homeland she barely knows, Peter, her husband, and their kids took most of their life savings and bought passage on a barge from Khartoum [the Muslim capital of Sudan]... to Juba, Sudan's southern capital, which she had never seen.... [Andy and I rode that barge from Khartoum to Juba back in the sixties -- and watched Sudanese soldiers beat natives in villages along the Nile]

     "More than 120,000 southerners living in the north have returned to the south in recent months.... Life in Juba is expensive, due in part to the artificial boom of aid dollars and foreign presence, but also because almost all goods must be imported; the war destroyed all industry here. [Islamic soldiers controlled everything and forced Christian and tribal children to fight in their army. Many Christians were tortured and killed for refusing to convert to Islam]....

       "The country is the size of France, but it has no paved roads to connect its towns and cities. Its terrain is a mixture of swamp, floodplains and dense tropical forest. Development is near nil. Fewer than 5 percent of the population attended grade school during the war, and infant mortality rates hover around 10 percent across much of the region."

Video: Sudan referendum angers northerners

Genocide. Former Sudanese child soldier expects more violence after vote: "Southern Sudan is holding a referendum on Jan. 9 to determine whether or not it will separate from the country and become an independent state. The vote is a result of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war that killed some two million people [including countless Christians whose children were used as male child soldiers or female sex objects by the Islamic rulers] and left millions of others displaced." See Genocide & Human Nature

 

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