South SudanBirth of new State

‘How can I celebrate independence when my home is burning?’

Southern Sudanese await transport in Khartoum suburb to take them to their homeland Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images

Tristan McConnell Wau

July 7 2011 12:01AM

Nyanyar Ayuel lost her grandson in the chaos of her escape from Abyei six

weeks ago after Sudanese tanks and troops occupied the town.

The teenager had gone to fetch water but, as bullets fizzed through the local market, she had no time to search for him. Mrs Ayuel, frail and blind in one eye, clung to her 11-year-old granddaughter’s arm and fled with thousands of others, scattering into the bush, running for their lives.

“I must go back to look for him, to discover if he is alive or dead,” she said, her voice nearly inaudible, her hand clutching her granddaughter’s as if afraid that she might also lose her.

Aid workers are trying to trace the boy and others who were separated from their families but no one has seen Mrs Ayuel’s grandson. “It’s a difficult case; it could take days or weeks,” Philip Deng, of Save the Children, said.

Southern Sudan becomes an independent country this weekend but, for as many as 100,000 who fled the disputed border region and live in temporary camps in the south, there is little to cheer.

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“How can I celebrate when my place is burning?” asked Sebit Khamis, a 24-year-old police officer who is among those queueing for food handouts. Like the others, he left Abyei with nothing but the clothes on his back and whatever money was in his pockets.

A health worker sitting at a wooden desk beneath a hastily erected tin lean-to said that he had seen many cases of diarrhoea, eye and respiratory infections and malnutrition. So far, there is neither measles nor cholera but, with the severe overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in this camp and others, an outbreak would spread quickly. There are ten long-drop toilets and two freshwater boreholes for more than a thousand people here.

Abyei, claimed by north and south, is just one potential trigger for more conflict. Khartoum and Juba have failed to agree on how to share international debt and oil revenues from southern fields; they cannot even agree where the border will be.

The decision this week to allow the negotiations, and so the uncertainty, to drag on beyond independence has disappointed Western backers of the 2005 peace agreement that ended two decades of civil war.

The invasion of Abyei is typical of the ruthless brinkmanship practised by President al-Bashir during his 22 years in power. It was not the first time that he had seized the town.

Living in one of hundreds of stick-framed huts covered with plastic sheeting on land outside the town of Wau was Amger Ngor, who has five children. She left everything when she fled — her small shop, her home, furniture and clothes — just as she had done three years before.

This time was worse. “Then, they did not use Antonovs [bombers] or fighter planes,” she said. She will return to Abyei once a promised battalion of 4,200 Ethiopian peacekeepers is deployed but, once again, she expects to find her home burnt and possessions stolen.

The Sudanese Air Force has been sent more recently over the restive northern state of South Kordofan and ground forces are reported to be massing there for an offensive in the Nuba mountains. Khartoum claims to be bombing fighters of the northern branch of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The former rebels fought alongside the predominantly black African south against the ethnically Arab north during the civil war, and refuse to disarm.

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Aid workers and church leaders say that civilians are being targeted in an attempt to “ethnically cleanse” the north’s most important oil-producing state once the south secedes.

The UN blames the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the SPLA-North for blocking access to civilians trapped by the fighting, as reports of atrocities and looting continue to emerge. An estimated 75,000 people have fled the fighting there.

Thabo Mbeki, the former President of South Africa, presided over an agreement signed in Addis Ababa last week to demobilise or integrate the Nubian soldiers into the SAF, raising hopes of an end to the fighting in South Kordofan.

Days later Mr al-Bashir appeared to renege on the deal, declaring that his troops would fight on “until they cleaned the state of rebels”.

Observers forecast similar troubles in Blue Nile, another northern state with oil and a partly southern population.

Latest UN figures showed that conflicts had killed more than 1,800 people in the south so far this year and forced 260,000 from their homes. Among them is Nydak Luarbong, a 47-year-old mother of six from Abyei. Despite the trauma of displacement she is determined to return to the region. “It is my homeland,” she said. “I have to go back even if they chase us again. We have to go.”

Newest nation is no place for new mothersMotorbike ambulances provided by Unicef allow women in labour in remote villages to get to hospital

Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images

Helen Rumbelow

July 7 2011 12:01AM

Getting pregnant in Southern Sudan is pretty much the bravest and most dangerous thing to do in the world

Happy birthday, Southern Sudan! On Saturday you will become the world’s newest country. It will be after some of the bloodiest, most protracted and painful

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labours in history, but still, this is good news — congratulations to the world’s 193rd newbie. It would be customary at this point to dash off a cute card and then get on with your life, as everyone does when they hear of a new arrival in the community.

But don’t just yet. Because the birth of Southern Sudan is actually one of the best stories you could tell to any woman who is fretting about giving birth in the UK.

To any woman who has written at the end of her Excel documented birth plan “want FIRM massage while in hospital water pool”, for anyone who has bitched at how her midwife was on her mobile phone, or the anaesthetist took an hour to eat lunch while she needed an epidural, well just listen. Southern Sudan will, on July 9, become “the worst country to be born in or to have a child. When Southern Sudan joins the international league tables on infant and maternal mortality, it will be at the bottom,” Unicef says.

Getting pregnant in Southern Sudan is pretty much the bravest and most dangerous thing to do in the world, short of Russian roulette. Conceiving is like a death wish.

Modern medicine means than in the UK the worst you can expect of pregnancy is a bad case of piles; in Southern Sudan more than one pregnant woman in 50 is killed by it (compared with one woman in 800,000 in the UK). And their newborn babies, of course, have it just as bad.

Why so? Well, for years it was a tale of north and south of the country, with the richer north doing not so badly while the south was devastated by years of war. In 2005, when the peace agreement was signed, there were only ten trained midwives in the whole of the south, which is the size of Eastern Europe and has a population of nine million.

The solution? It’s not much but it’s a start. Unicef has started a pilot project using motorbike ambulances to get women in labour to hospital, a project that has halved maternal mortality in pilot schemes in other countries.

As Juliana, one of the grateful women who have used the 17 bikes since they were introduced in November, says: “They saved my life. The only other option would have been bicycle, and the baby’s head was already starting to come out, so cycling over the bumps would have been very dangerous.”

Happy birthday, Southern Sudan, and to Juliana, happy birthday to your healthy baby boy Agustino, who at four months is hope for the country’s future.

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South Sudan independence: thousands of peacekeepers to be sent to prevent it becoming failed state

A fresh force of international peacekeepers is expected to be agreed on Friday to protect South Sudan, the world's newest nation, falling into chaos and becoming a failed state.

Southern Sudanese military police participate in an independence rehearsal procession in Juba Photo: AP

By Mike Pflanz, Juba 9:00PM BST 07 Jul 2011

The UN Security Council will vote on sending up to 7,000 armed blue berets to the Republic of South Sudan, which wins independence from its former enemy Sudan at midday on Saturday.

Ban Ki-moon has recommended that the new mission should focus on protecting civilians – with force if necessary – and on reforms to the police, army and justice systems.There are fears that from its outset, the world's 193rd country will be unable adequately to police its territory, guard its borders or protect its eight million citizens.

Sudan's majority Christian south fought its Muslim north for 38 of its 54 years of independence from Britain, and the hangover of that war is almost a million guns, mostly in civilian hands in the south.

The southern army, born from the rebel force which fought the war, is bloated with troops and drains as much as 60 per cent of South Sudan's annual budget. One diplomat in Juba quipped that it was "in essence the state's welfare system".

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The police force, provincial administration, courts and tax systems are, at best, stumbling, raising the risk of widening public anger among a population expecting an instant windfall from independence.

"We need to be modest in managing the expectations of what South Sudan can achieve, and how quickly," said George Conway, deputy head of the UN Development Programme's office in Juba, South Sudan's capital."There has been good progress since the end of the war, but real change is going to be generational." In reality, the Republic of South Sudan will from its first days easily fulfil most requirements of a failed state.

Separated from the more advanced north, it will also immediately knock Zimbabwe off the bottom spot on the index of human development.At least 80 per cent of the population is illiterate – rising to 92 per cent for women – the majority of civil servants did not finish secondary school and there are estimated to be fewer than 500 trained doctors in a country the size of France.

A 15-year-old girl is more statistically more likely to die in childbirth than she is to finish school."It's fair to say that these are political and security challenges that would tax even the most developed countries," said a senior Western diplomat in Juba."South Sudan is facing all of them, and all at once." There was little evidence of the severity of that challenge in Juba yesterday.

Ahead of tomorrow's independence ceremonies, roads that were dirt a year ago are now freshly laid with asphalt.Armies of women swept streets as government gardeners hastily planted bougainvillea bushes on the main roads preparing for an onslaught of VIPs.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, leads the delegation from London. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, will represent the Obama administration.So many presidential planes from other African countries are due to land at the city's ramshackle airport in the coming hours that civilian flights have been cancelled for two days.

"We are very happy to show the world the best of our new country," said Abraham Mayom, 32, a mechanic working on a Chinese-made motorcycle by the roadside."But what of next week, or next month, or next year? We are like a baby not yet able even to crawl. We will need help for long before we are up on our two feet walking alone." Almost £90 million of British aid will flow through the small Department for International Development office in Juba this year – almost £12 for each Southern Sudanese man, woman and child.

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DfID is also outsourcing chunks of its work in Sudan to private British firms, including Mott McDonald, Atos Consulting and the Adam Smith Institute, which manage schemes focused on security, justice and government practice.

Even Sudanese refugees who fled to Britain during the civil war are returning home to invest money and spread technical know-how picked up during their education overseas.

Albert Rehan, 38, who won asylum in Britain in 1995, now runs a recruitment consultancy with offices in Juba and in Holborn, London, specialising on filling technical and managerial level jobs in South Sudan's booming private sector.

"I'm still struggling to find good candidates," he said, sipping sweet black tea under a mango tree in central Juba. "But that's because now clients demand people with the right skills for the job, not just the right family name. That in itself gives us reason to be optimistic." That optimism must be tempered, however, by key planks in the peace deal that have still not been secured.

There is no agreement on sharing oil, which lies mostly under southern soil but must be refined and exported through the north. It is unclear how foreign debts, borrowed when Sudan was unified, will be repaid once it splits.

Of most concern, however, is the border between the two new neighbours.Its precise route has not yet been decided. Already Omar al-Bashir, the president in the north, is accused of supporting loyal militia in the south to raise rebellion, especially in the oil-rich Abyei state.

Tens of thousands of northern civilians are still fleeing south after repeated bombing raids against them by the Sudan Air Force, under the instructions of Mr Bashir who is already wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

"The increasing violence and human rights violations this year underscore the need for a robust and flexible peacekeeping presence in South Sudan," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

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South Sudan: factfileSouth Sudan is about to become the world's 193rd nation

President Salva Kiir Mayardit Photo: EPA

By Mike Pflanz, Juba

9:30PM BST 07 Jul 2011

Nation No. 193

Official Name – The Republic of South Sudan

President – Salva Kiir Mayardit, 60, battle-hardened army officer, fond of cowboy hats

National Anthem – God Bless South Sudan, with verses dedicated to the motherland and the great patriots

Flag – Black, red and green horizontal stripes, with a gold star in a blue triangle

Population – 8.5 million estimated

Religion – Mostly Christian (Anglican, Catholic), but many practice traditional African beliefs

Main towns – Juba (capital), Wau, Yei, Rumbek, Malakal

Borders – Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, DR Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan

Area – 225,000 sq miles, roughly equal to France or Texas

Currency – Not yet decided. Currently the Sudanese Pound

Exports – Oil

Independence Day – July 9, 2011

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South Sudan: the birth of a new republicAfter decades of conflict with the ruling Islamic north, Sudan's southern provinces will on 9 July become an independent nation. Here, members of Britain's South Sudanese community reveal their hopes for the future

Leo Hickman, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 July 2011 23.00 BST

Martin Muortat wishes to return home to South Sudan. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Tomorrow, the Republic of South Sudan will become a newly independent nation. Last January, the overwhelming majority of its people voted in a referendum to break away from the

rest of Sudan and establish an independent republic, marking the end – it is hoped – of two generations of conflict.

South Sudan, with its largely non-Muslim population, will now offer a stark contrast to the Arab, Islamic north governed from Khartoum by PresidentOmar al-Bashir. It will be governed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the political wing of the rebel army that fought with the north before a peace accord was signed in 2005. Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of the Southern Sudan region, must now try to rebuild a war-ravaged country, with the focus on constructing a functioning capital in Juba.

During the decades of conflict in Sudan, many people fled, citing either religious or tribal persecution. They ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries or found sanctuary further afield.

An 8,000-strong community of Sudanese exiles live in the UK, mostly in London. Here, six of them explain their hopes and fears for their new independent homeland – and recall the events that led them here.

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Martin Muortat, 48, London

I fled from Sudan in the 1980s. The process was difficult: I walked to the Ethiopian border in 1984, then stayed in Addis Ababa until 1986 before flying to the UK, where some of my family had already relocated. I completed a university degree and have been a teacher in London for 15 years teaching maths in secondary schools. But I have been waiting for this moment all that time. I never thought that it would happen.

I'm very emotional. It's been a struggle. We have all grown up on stories of people sacrificing their lives for this moment. I have lost many relatives and this day was a dream for my late father. There are individual tragedies everywhere, but the nightmare is now ending.

You can forgive, but never forget as the memories are so strong. Some families have lost all their children and in our culture to lose a son is a huge tragedy. But we are looking to the future now. We are optimistic and want to make our own way.

I will move back, but I need to build a house first. I have children aged six and nine. They have mixed feelings about returning. We took them on holiday there last year, which they enjoyed. They loved the weather and the freedom. They chased chickens around and said the air smelled different to London. But London is still home to them and they have been affected by the stories of war. They would miss their friends here, plus the schools need improving.

Most of the men have already returned as they want to start improving things. There is a huge skills gap so many have taken up jobs as civil servants. But they are leaving salaries of, say, £40,000, and then earning far less. Some of them have property in the UK so it is difficult for them to abandon all this. However, their gut feeling is that they need to help their country. Many have large expectations, but they have to start from scratch. The change is difficult.

We still have lots of friends in north Sudan. I grew up there. In London, I meet up with my friends from the north. It is the government that has made it so difficult for everyone. They only have one direction and that is Islamic. There is no room for anything else.

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Amina Dut, 46, London

I am a member of the Dinka tribe and I come from Rumdek in the south. I left in 1995 when the fighting was terrible. I was studying at university when the war started and was forced to flee to Khartoum with my uncles before making it to the UK, which is where I have lived ever since and where my four children were born. But my husband returned in 1997 to get involved in politics; I last saw him in 2009.

All my brothers were fighting in the war when it first broke out. Our village fell under government control and after trying to hide in cattle sheds we had to join a convoy. I was so scared and it was awful to see so many people dying.

So to hear independence is finally coming is so pleasing to me. Two million people died, but it is not in vain as we are getting our freedom and identity back. But a lot needs to be addressed first. The health and education system needs to be completely rebuilt.

My children want to stay in the UK because they have grown up here. They like going there, but we will have to see whether they could ever want to go permanently. I hope it will be in two to three years because the country needs us. We need to be there.

South Sudan is very different to the north. We are pure black Africans and mostly Christians. I am Catholic. I am not Arab like the people in the north. They came into Sudan much later than us. I cannot live under their sharia law. That's why we have to separate.

Kamal Kambal, 39, London

I come from the Nuba mountains on the border between the north and south Sudan and fled to the UK in 1998 when I became a target thanks to my joining the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.

We continue to fight today even though peace first came to the country in 2005. The peace agreement does not answer our questions in the Nuba. The government in the north continues to violate the agreement and is killing our people in the villages. They want to replace us with Arabs. We still feel we're left in the darkness and we are worried. We are proud of independence day, but we are facing a bleak future. There are six million people of the Nuba, but only a million remain in the

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mountains. We want the international community and our brothers in the south to help us.

The main cause of the problem is the border. Politically, we are of the south, but geographically we have been placed in the north. We should be given a choice, but nobody asked us. We don't want to be Muslims or Arabs. Many of us are Christians.

We really want a no-fly zone over the Nuba mountains, but this is very difficult to achieve. The government bombs our people 30-40 times a day. The UN is there in small numbers, but that is not enough.

People have been killed right in front of the UN and nothing happens.I will have mixed emotions on 9 July. I am happy for our lost colleagues who dreamed of such a day, but we are only really at the very beginning of our struggle.

Hakeem Legge, 52, Wakefield

In the early 1990s, I was training as a chemist in Juba. The government decided all schools were to teach Arabic, so some students went on strike and destroyed some buildings. The government thought we were all to blame so they made us report to them regularly to prove we had not joined the rebels.

In 1993, I left Juba and travelled to Khartoum, but I knew I was under surveillance. My wife had just travelled to Sheffield to take up a university scholarship. Three days after she crossed into Uganda to catch her flight from Kampala, I was detained because they suspected I was a rebel due to her leaving the country. I was held for 10 days and I thought I was going to die. But I was saved when my wife faxed a note from Sheffield explaining her scholarship.

A few months later, the government nominated me as a minister of state for education. It was a tactic to win me round. They tried to soften me up by saying sorry, but I asked for time to consider. Then I met the deputy president socially one day and he quietly said to me that I'd made a big mistake by not taking up their offer. But it was a matter of principle for me not to serve them. These were people who amputated limbs as a form of punishment.

They then invited me to join the army. I agreed, otherwise they would have come for me. But, after I managed to defer my training for a short period, I made a break for it.

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I did my homework and worked out that Syria was the only country that meant I didn't need to apply for an exit visa so I caught a flight from Khartoum to Damascus. I wanted to return to another African country, but I didn't have enough money so I applied at the British embassy to join my wife in Sheffield. Once in the UK I applied for asylum and later completed a masters in health promotion at Leeds. I have since worked for Barnados and the Terence Higgins Trust.

In 2009, I returned for the first time to see my mother and visit my father's grave. He was my mentor and my friend and I managed to keep him alive from cancer for a bit longer by sending him money from the UK for treatment. But I never saw him alive again.

I want to return again, but it is conditional on political stability. It's not safe yet. Our late leader John Garang was a true visionary but he died in an air crash in 2005. His deputy, Salva Kiir Mayardit, is illiterate and doesn't understand government. We now have 500 ministers and 2,000 members of parliament and yet we only have a population of eight million people. There is rampant corruption and nepotism. We should have called in the UN to help us set up a government. But the leadership has basically declared a state of emergency that puts all the power into the hands of the president. He is from the Dinka tribe, which is the largest, and he is trying to create an atmosphere where only another Dinka could replace him.

Africa is a continent where politics is very different from the rest of the world. The reprisals for my extended family could be severe for something I say. I cannot return until this all changes. I will not be celebrating on 9 July, or attending the parties. We are only exchanging one oppressive regime for another. There is no clean water for the refugees returning from eastern Africa because all the money has gone into private bank accounts. If I wanted to make my fortune I could return now, but what is the point when people are starving.

Some of my friends ask me why I am so difficult, but if I returned now my impact with regard to improving things would be like throwing a grain of salt into the Seine.

Sakina Dario, 47, Leeds

I come from Chukudum in Eastern Equatoria and belong to a huge extended family from the Dinka tribe. My father was a chief and MP in the area, but passed away at the beginning of the war. He had 10 wives and many children, but he was passionate about schooling and making sure women were educated. So I went to a

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women-only university to study psychology and teaching English as a foreign language. I graduated in 1989 and worked as a teaching assistant, but, due to my father's influence, I began to campaign for welfare reform. My political activism led to me being arrested and interrogated in Khartoum. The government tried to appoint me to a role in order to silence me, but I managed to flee to the UK in 1993. Originally, I tried to flee to Kenya, but I couldn't get an exit visa so I applied for a scholarship in the UK and US. I chose the UK and my uncle helped with the extra fees. On the plane before it departed, a colleague was arrested and taken away, but I just stayed cool and looked down. I was terrified.

It was a relief to leave, but I was sad to leave my family, plus I felt guilty for not being with my people. But the situation was terrible in Sudan for women. You could get arrested for the way you dressed and women were herded around like animals.

Due to my father's position, I am obliged and expected to go back home. I was nominated to become an MP, but my daughter is still at school here. The schools in Sudan are now worse than when I was a girl. A lot of people with children here like me now have to make this difficult choice about whether to return or not.

Most men have already left the UK and returned, but the women and children remain here. There are now no educated Sudanese women there because a lot of girls didn't go to school during the war. That is a big challenge for our country. But many women feel they need to stay in the UK to earn money because the men are finding it difficult to earn enough in Sudan.

We need to work out a way to ensure that women and the younger generation participate in the process of governance. The government needs to prioritise a better gender balance. The opportunities for women are just not there yet.

Wol Ariec, 49, London

I am the chargé d'affaires for South Sudan in the UK and the director for political, cultural and community affairs. We have two diplomatic staff in the UK at present based in an office in King's Cross, but we hope to move to an embassy soon because the UK recognises our government.

We have been set up now for two years and are very interested in encouraging British businesses to come and invest in South Sudan. Historically, we have very strong links with the UK. We have a huge potential for oil and mining. We need

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this income to build our roads, hospitals and schools and we want British businesses to invest. Some foreign investors have already made millions of dollars since the end of the war, but so far very few British companies have got involved.

We are keen not to make the same mistakes seen elsewhere in Africa. We don't want to commit ourselves to debt. We don't want to be a liability. Investment capital is what we really need, not loans. It will be the people who decide how our oil revenues are spent. The north is still an important partner for us so we have to maintain a relationship. We have no choice. Khartoum needs to understand this. We all still have family connections in the north.

We also have to maintain our national unity in the south. Our leader, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has kept us all united. We cannot deny that we have challenges, though. Everyone has a gun now, whereas before it was just spears and sticks. We are a nation of warriors and have a culture where men must prove their manhood and show they are stronger than others.

But people also want peace. They are so tired of war. We are a democratic country with an elected government.

We are very grateful to the UK for welcoming us during the war. But we must return home now and enjoy the fruits of South Sudan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/interactive/2011/jul/07/north-south-sudan-development-indicators-interactive?intcmp=239

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UN accused of standing by while Sudanese forces killed civilians

Daniel Howden hears shocking evidence that international peacekeeping mission did nothing to stop ethnic cleansing

Friday, 8 July 2011

AFP/GETTY

The UN mission in Sudan, composed mainly of Egyptian troops, is accused of being partisan

The UN mission in Sudan stands accused of serious failures in its duty to protect civilians who have been killed in their hundreds during a month-long campaign of violence by the Khartoum government on its restive southern border.

Eyewitnesses described to The Independent how they saw peacekeepers standing by while unarmed civilians were shot dead outside the gates of a UN base before being dragged away "like slaughtered sheep". They also said that local leaders have been handed over to government forces after seeking shelter with UN officials.

The violence has driven tens of thousands of civilians into hiding in the Nuba Mountains, which are controlled by rebel fighters and where public anger at the UN has left peacekeepers afraid to leave their bases, according to officers from the mission's Egyptian contingent.

When fighting erupted in the South Kordofan state capital of Kadugli in early June, tens of thousands of terrified civilians flocked to a "safe haven" directly outside the gates of the UN Missions in Sudan (Unmis) base.

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Hawa Mando, a school teacher, reached the camp for internally displaced people on 5 June with her family after fighting in the town forced her to flee her home. She witnessed government agents and irregular troops – notorious from atrocities in Darfur – known as the Popular Defence Force entering the camp hunting for people on a list of government critics.

"They had lists of people they were looking for," said the mother of seven. "Local spies would point people out and they would shoot them." She continued: "In front of my eyes I saw six people shot dead. They just dragged the bodies away by their feet like slaughtered sheep.

"People were crying and screaming and the UN soldiers just stood and watched in their watchtowers." Kouider Zerrouk, an Unmis spokesman based in Khartoum, denied that peacekeepers had stood by while civilians were killed but did not elaborate.

The Khartoum regime has been attacking the South Kordofan region for at least a month as tensions rise before South Sudan's declaration of independence tomorrow. The devastating military onslaught against forces loyal to the one-time rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army was preceded by repeated warnings that government forces were building up in the border region, which will be of crucial importance to the North as its main source of oil. Western aid workers have called the campaign "ethnic cleansing" of the Nuba people which the UN has done nothing to prevent.

With their ugly echoes of the UN's failure to protect civilians during the massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, the allegations are a troubling addition to the organisation's difficulties as it attempts to ensure that South Sudan's move to independence goes smoothly. The incendiary claims come against a backdrop of bitter suspicion of the UN. Angry locals in South Kordofan have accused UN forces of failing in their duty to investigate the bombing of civilian areas and of retreating into their bases in violation of the mandate from the Security Council.

Under the terms of the mandate given to the mission by the UN Security Council the peacekeepers were "authorised to take the necessary action... to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence".

The failure to protect civilians displaced by the fighting who sought shelter at the base has led to accusations that the UN force was not neutral. Resolution 1590 which created Unmis further calls for "particular attention" to be given to the protection of "vulnerable groups including internally displaced persons".

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There are no independently confirmed figures for the number of casualties from the fighting and humanitarian organisations working in the area have had to evacuate their staff. Estimates from local doctors suggest at least 600 people have been killed.

The UN mission is accused of ignoring repeated warnings of a military build-up in the state and allowing government forces to camp right next to the Unmis base in Kadugli.

In a letter copied to the UN head of mission in the town prior to the fighting, a local Nuban leader, Abdel Aziz Adam al-Hilu, questioned the presence of "combat troops and vehicles" which were "adjacent" to the peacekeepers' base. "What is the relation between your forces and these forces?" his letter asked, but no explanation was forthcoming. The Unmis spokesman Mr Zerrouk told The Independent that the organisation had tried, but failed, to persuade the authorities to set up the camp elsewhere.

After the shooting started and it became clear that Mr Abdel Aziz and his supporters were being targeted in house-to-house searches many activists tried to reach the haven at the camp for displaced people outside the UN base.

Unmis officials are also accused of selectively preventing civilians with links to opposition groups from sheltering there. Najda Romeo-Peter, a civil servant at the governor's office, said she saw UN officials standing with government agents and soldiers at the camp gate when they refused to allow in known activists from the opposition SPLM party: "They were told the camp was full and they were turned away.

"They [the activists] knew they would be killed so they refused to leave but the peacekeepers forced them away."

The names of two local Nuban Unmis staff, Nimeri Philip and Juma Bahar, were also given to The Independent – both men were killed by government forces, according to witnesses, while trying to assist civilians near the base.

Additionally civil servants working in the state government were arrested while on board an evacuation flight bound for southern Sudan. The witness testimony was backed by the Bishop of Kadugli, the Rt Rev Andudu Adam Elnail, whose church was burned down and who has sought refuge in the US. "When the SAF [government] troops came, the UN handed the civilians to SAF and they were killed," he said.

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Unmis reports have seriously underplayed the almost daily bombing raids over the Nuba Mountains by Northern government forces, according to local monitors. The alleged complicity of the UN mission – which is dominated by Egyptian troops – has stoked outrage among the local Nuba population. On 27 June dozens of women and children marched to the gates of the Unmis base in the rebel-held town of Kauda where they presented a petition outlining repeated failures to enforce the mandate to protect civilians and investigate violations of the 2005 peace agreement.

"The UN is not neutral," said the woman who led the march, whose name cannot be given for security reasons. "They are doing nothing to protect us so they should go."

The Sudan expert John Ashworth said that the reports from South Kordofan were part of repeated failures by the UN to remain neutral in Sudan's internal conflicts. "This isn't the first time that we're hearing about Egyptian peacekeepers" failing to fulfil their duties, he said. Mr Ashworth accused the UN of allowing Khartoum to dictate which nationalities would be used where in peacekeeping forces: "They choose either countries where they're linked by culture and religion or countries where they are linked by oil.

"The international community doesn't understand how clever the Khartoum government is and the UN has been manipulated repeatedly," he said.

"It has been going on so long we can't say it's inadvertent any more," he added. At the Unmis base in Kauda, an Egyptian captain, Mohamed el-Kadawy, said they had stopped patrols for the last two weeks and that it had become "too dangerous" for his men to go outside. He denied the existence of any deal between the northern government and his commanders but said his men were not there to "make peace" but to "observe". "It's not safe for us here. We are waiting to hear from Khartoum when we will leave."

Q&A: An oil region of crucial importance

Why is the Khartoum government attacking South Kordofan?

The attacks over the past month have been motivated by the regime's perception that rebels loyal to the breakaway South – particularly the Sudan People's Liberation Movement – have gained sway in the region. The region is of vital importance to the North because it is now the only significant source of oil.

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Why have the attacks taken place in the build-up to Saturday's independence?

Many civilians in South Kordofan are loyal to the ex-rebel army of what will now be South Sudan, the SPLA. Analysts say the attacks are a deliberate attempt by President Omar al-Bashir to suppress further secessionist feeling in what remains of the north of the country. The Khartoum regime has become increasingly concerned that the declaration of independence will act as a rallying call to northern rebels.

Why might the UN be reluctant to intervene?

Some analysts believe that the Egyptian peacekeeping forces are sympathetic to President Bashir's cause and so have been ineffective in policing his forces in the region. The forces' leadership are said to prioritise the maintenance of Egypt's relationship with Sudan over the good of the population. Locally, UN forces say it has become too dangerous to leave their bases as often as necessary to fulfil their duties.

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Violent birth stokes fear for Sudan’s futureBy Katrina Manson in Juba

Fragile joy: members of the ruling SPLM at a rally in Juba ahead of Saturday’s celebrations to mark the creation of the new state

As members of South Sudan’s parliament sat down this week in Juba, its new capital, to vote on a constitution to herald the birth of their new nation, the speaker’s first orders were for MPs to leave their weapons at the gate.

It was a sign of how, six years after a hard-won peace deal between Sudan’s warring north and south, the threat of violence remains ever present as the country prepares to split in two.

The new state to be born on Saturday from a civil war that claimed over 2m lives will emerge on a war footing, fragile, with few working institutions and, sceptics believe, a strong chance of failure.

“We came out from the bush as a guerrilla army. For the army to establish a state is a truly monumental task,” William Deng Deng, chairman of the southern disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration commission, told the Financial Times.

It is a task that is far from being accomplished. Formed from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) rebels, the government of the new country, some diplomats argue, is more like a welfare system for former fighters than an administration designed to deliver public good. This year’s budget devotes 44 per cent of spending to security and the rule of law.

The basis for the state is still being negotiated. When the establishment of the Republic of South Sudan is celebrated, following a near-unanimous secession vote from southerners in January, it will still have an undefined border with the north.

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Tense negotiations with the Khartoum government over territory, currency and resources have worried aid agencies over prospects for a return to war.

The UN says more than 2,300 people have been killed since January in events including cattle raids and militia attacks. In disputed border areas, shelling and alleged ethnic cleansing by Khartoum government forces has sent hundreds of thousands fleeing south.

A further 400,000 southerners living north of the new border are expected to return before the end of the year.

The new administration, meanwhile, has barely stamped its authority on the territory it controls, let alone provided services. The literacy rate is less than half that of the north, and infant and maternal mortality rates are high.

“There must be a peace dividend and as it is you don’t have it yet,” said Mr Deng Deng.

On Saturday the mood will nonetheless be festive. As they prepared this week to welcome 30 African heads of state and senior western diplomats, marching bands practised parades along Juba’s few paved roads.

Parliamentarians broke into impromptu song in the legislature’s lobby as they chimed in with mobile phone ring tones that pick out the tune of the new national anthem.But critics of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) argue that when the party is over and the common enemy in Khartoum is gone, there is a real risk of conflict.

A report by the International Crisis Group earlier this year noted the return of long-simmering political disputes, alongside “a domineering approach” from the SPLM, saying it has “a chokehold” on institutions.“It turned out to be a one-party constitution,” says opposition politician Lam Akol, who decries the “excessive powers of the president” Salva Kiir Mayardit, former SPLA head.

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Gabriel Changson, another opposition politician who accepted a cabinet post, says democracy has been repeatedly sacrificed in pursuit of the “bigger prize” of independence.

The SPLM fiercely rejects the criticism. Pagan Amum, party leader and minister, said those who already see South Sudan as a failed state are “prophets of doom”, citing the emergence of successful states following upheavals such as the French revolution. He said the constitutional debate was “healthy” and development would take time.

“People seem all of a sudden to show terrible ignorance of how nations are born as baby nations.”At a rally in Juba on a stretch of scrub lined by half a dozen buildings under construction, Joseph Lago, the former army chief who led the south in the first 1955-1972 chapter of the civil war, called on his fellow countrymen to lay down their weapons.

Nostalgic for his fighting days, he was still pleased with himself for once convincing Israel to deliver him weapons. He dated southern Sudan’s “struggle to be ourselves” to the Ottoman conquest in 1820. But he looked ahead to a new and peaceful beginning come Saturday.Despite bitterness with the north, he said, the two sides should “exchange ambassadors not exchange fire”.

South Sudan needs our support to succeedBy Sir John Holmes

The launch of a new state should be a time for optimism. But South Sudan will emerge into deeply troubled waters when it formally declares its independence on Saturday, splitting Africa’s largest country in two. While the government leads celebrations in the new boomtown capital of Juba, life for most citizens will remain very difficult. And events on the borders of the new state are of huge concern.

I visited Sudan many times as UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, partly because of Darfur, but also because of running concerns about the South. The 2005 peace agreement had ended the long and bloody North-South war, but hundreds of thousands of civilians were still affected by internal fighting and Lord’s Resistance Army incursions.

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Meanwhile most of the region’s population lives in extreme poverty; treatable diseases are still endemic, infant and maternal mortality horrifically high and education and health services very limited. The threat of famine is ever present. For a young government already facing accusations of poor governance and corruption, it is an Everest to climb.

The North has reluctantly accepted the principle of separation but its seizure of the contested border region of Abyei in May shocked everyone. More recently, fighting in the border state of Southern Kordofan between Northern forces and communities unwilling to contemplate a future in the North has been brutal, with reports of civilians dragged out of their homes to be executed. The UN says nearly 200,000 people have fled. Issues such as the border and oil revenue sharing are unresolved. What little trust there was has fast evaporated. Ceasefires are now agreed in theory, and a new UN-backed peacekeeping force proposed for Abyei. But fighting continues and humanitarian access is heavily restricted.

All this has brought North and South Sudan closer to resuming war than at any time since 2005. The impact would be horrific – the previous 20-year conflict resulted in more than 2m deaths. The African Union, UN and the Guarantors of Sudan’s Peace Agreement have all invested too much to see it crumble. But for the media and international community, Sudan and its problems are no longer in fashion.

This is not good enough. The humanitarians will do their bit, so long as they receive funding. But aid is only ever a palliative. As a coalition of NGOs argued in a report released last week*, sustained, high-level international engagement with both North and South is critical to end the violence and turn hope into reality for the South. In the past Khartoum, brilliant at tactics if not strategy, has expertly played off China’s interest in oil against the west’s moral indignation, the African Union’s instinctive solidarity with one of its members against the UN’s concern with effective peacekeeping, and so on. All concerned need to learn the lessons of individual and collective failure and put together a genuinely united approach.

We need more than the usual diet of half-hearted discussion and empty threats to convince the North to respect their agreements. The South needs long-term help to build a functioning state and lift its people out of poverty. But it should not get a blank cheque, or immunity from well-founded concerns about corruption. If the Security Council, meeting next week to discuss recognising the new state and redeploying its peacekeepers in the South, could quickly agree on such a co-ordinated strategy – and implement it – that would be a start. The peacekeeping

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force should not drop below the 7,000 troops recommended. It also needs real support, even when the going gets tough, including from Russia and China. Sudan’s neighbours must also make their views felt in Juba and Khartoum. They are much more than just interested observers.

July 9 is a moment to celebrate, but if we are to avert renewed war and the emergence of a new failed state, it must not be the end of international focus on Sudan. We must not fail in a new, agreed effort to create stability.

*Beyond the Pledge: International Engagement After Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement

The writer was the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs from 2007-10 and is now director of the Ditchley Foundation

South Sudan, the Newest Nation, Is Full of Hope and Problems

Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesRehearsals are under way for this weekend's independence celebrations in Juba, the capital of the new Republic of South Sudan. More Photos »By JEFFREY GETTLEMANPublished: July 7, 2011

JUBA, Sudan — After five decades of guerrilla struggle and two million lives lost, the flags are flapping proudly here in this capital. The new national anthem is blasting all over town. People are toasting oversize bottles of White Bull beer (the local brew), and children are boogieing in the streets.Multimedia “Free at Last,” reads a countdown clock.

But from the moment it declares independence on Saturday, the Republic of South Sudan, the world’s newest country and Africa’s 54th state, will take its place at the

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bottom of the developing world. A majority of its people live on less than a dollar a day. A 15-year-old girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than she does of finishing primary school. More than 10 percent of children do not make it to their fifth birthday. About three-quarters of adults cannot read. Only 1 percent of households have a bank account.

Beyond that, the nation faces several serious insurrections within its own sprawling territory and hostilities with northern Sudan, its former nemesis.

It is clearly an underdog story.

So many people here embody the distance traveled and the hopes to come. James Aguto, a former child soldier and longtime guerrilla fighter, now delivers babies. Mr. Aguto is a newly minted clinical officer, working in a government hospital, and his journey from taking life to sustaining it makes him an apt symbol for the transition this country is trying to make.

“There was one night I delivered six babies, six babies in one night!” he said. “I was so happy. I was making development here. I was showing that I had skills.”

Mr. Aguto now wants to be a doctor. “I have that spirit,” he explained.

The nation will certainly need it. More than 2,300 people have been killed in ethnic and rebel violence this year, with at least a half-dozen rebel groups, some with thousands of fighters, prowling the bush, attacking government soldiers, terrorizing civilians, and stealing cattle and even children.

The hospital where Mr. Aguto works is a case in point. In one bed lies a thin young man with a huge cast on his leg.

“Abyei,” the man grunted, referring to the disputed area on the border of northern and southern Sudan that is claimed by both sides. It is considered one of the many potential trouble spots that could plunge this region back into war. He was shot there in May, when the northern Sudanese army invaded.

Nearby is another young man, hobbling around with a walker. “Unity State,” he said. “A militia.” He was shot as well, in another tense border area.

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Ethnicity is a consistent fault line here. The government is dominated by the Dinka, the biggest group in southern Sudan, and some of the toughest rebel armies are commanded by members of the Nuer, a historic rival.

“This is just tribal fighting,” Mustafa Biong Majak, a South Sudan government spokesman, said with a dismissive wave of his hand, arguing that the clashes posed no threat to stability. “Let them die.”

But many people here fear that after the glow of independence wears off, the Nuer and the Dinka, who fought viciously during the north-south civil war, will become locked in conflict again. And even within the Dinka-dominated government forces, there are deep problems.

Government troops routinely take sides in local land disputes and battles over cattle, and recently soldiers have been hijacking United Nations trucks hauling food. Hunger is yet another challenge, with more than three million people in South Sudan, nearly 40 percent of the population, needing food aid to survive.

Less than 10 miles outside the capital, in the village of Rajaf, people are fleeing the countryside because bandits are killing farmers and kidnapping children. The rule for visitors is to leave by sunset.

“There is no security here,” said Rose Bojo, a tea seller.

Insecurity is such a drain on resources that under the current budget, the government of South Sudan spends about $700 million on security-related matters — more than the budget for education, health care, electricity, roads and industry combined.

But this is also a country of obvious possibilities. South Sudan produces about 375,000 barrels of oil per day, and though negotiators are still working on the specific formula of how the two Sudans — north and south — will share the oil, the south stands to make billions from its reserves.

It has land, miles and miles of thick forests and fertile jungles, where the trees drip with vines and branches bend earthward, heavy with fruit. Still, in most villages, there is no electricity, no running water, no metal even. Barefoot boys dusted with the red dirt stirred up by passing trucks sell bottles of honey along the road. The

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South Sudan government says 83 percent of its people live in thatched-roof huts, a legacy of decades of marginalization.

Even before Sudan declared independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956, southerners were clamoring for more rights and complaining about being treated as second-class citizens.

South Sudan is mostly animist and Christian, culturally more akin to sub-Saharan Africa than northern Sudan, which is predominantly Muslim and dominated by Arabs. Southern rebels fought for years against the central government, and in 2005 the Bush administration helped broker a treaty between the sides that granted the south wide autonomy and the right to secede.

This January, southerners voted by nearly 99 percent to form their own country, which is what will officially happen on Saturday in festivities to be attended by high-ranking Western officials and more than a dozen African leaders.

Some of the expected guests, like President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and President Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, are cautionary tales of what can happen when guerrilla leaders finally take power. Zimbabwe and Eritrea are considered among the most repressive countries in the world. But South Sudanese officials say that they are aware of the pitfalls, and that their government will be different.

“If we had wanted to, we could have declared a five-year transition period from the beginning,” said Mr. Majak, the government spokesman. “But no, we didn’t do that. We held elections.”

For the past six years, the southern Sudanese have essentially been running their own affairs, policing themselves, patrolling their borders, and wooing investment and development aid. International aid organizations are still going to play a crucial role here, especially in health and education. For example, Mr. Aguto, the bush fighter turned clinical officer, was trained by Amref, an aid group. He is now looking for sponsors to pay for medical school so he can become a pediatrician.

“South Sudan started from zero,” he said. “Why shouldn’t we be able to transform?”

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As It Emerges as a Nation, South Sudan Extends the Clout of Its Neighbor Uganda

By JOSH KRONPublished: July 6, 2011

JUBA, Sudan — Shakirah Namwanje may be something of a big shot.

Thomas Mukoya/ReutersMembers of the Agar Lmarol group from Lake state in Rumbek performed a traditional celebration dance on Wednesday during preparations for the independence ceremony in Juba, South Sudan, on Saturday.

Like tens of thousands of fellow Ugandans who have emigrated to this new land across the border, Ms. Namwanje has come to get rich. Outfitted with a sharp mind and a must-do personality, she earned eight times as much in three months as she would have back home. She helps run a successful import business here, and when her boss is out of town, Ms. Namwanje is in charge, barking out orders and making things happen — an emblem of an increasingly influential legion of foreigners.

“To get money,” says Ms. Namwanje. “It’s easy to make.”

And she’s only 17.

South Sudan’s independence celebrations on Saturday will not only usher in the world’s newest country, they may also be a coronation of its southern neighbor, Uganda, as a cresting regional influence.

In the last two decades, Uganda has helped bring three surrounding governments to power — here, in Rwanda and in Congo. In Somalia, it has dispatched thousands of troops to preserve another. And for southern Sudan, Uganda has been nothing short of a life-support system.

Southern Sudan’s former rebel leader, John Garang, attended the same university in Tanzania as President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and his guerrilla movement used Uganda as a base during its war with the north. Since the end of

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the war, the two governments have maintained an intimate security relationship, with agreements on training and joint military operations.

Even now, with independence close at hand, South Sudan will be a nation in dependence. Countries from the United States to China are investing in the soon-to-be country, and the nearby East African Community says it is likely South Sudan will join the regional economic bloc. But Uganda, a developing country itself, holds a special place.

A vast portion of South Sudan’s produce is imported, and Uganda exports more goods to South Sudan than any country in the world, with exports surging alongside the south’s growing demand for them. A Ugandan diplomat in Juba said there were roughly 60,000 Ugandans living and working in southern Sudan, and entire neighborhoods of the small but booming capital are populated by Ugandans.

Cross-border trade between Uganda and South Sudan recently surpassed $150 million, and the two governments have been reported to be working on a joint-venture to build a state-of-the-art market in Juba.

This is nothing new. Uganda has a history under President Museveni of supporting nearby rebel movements and later exporting large amounts of goods and people to the countries once those groups came to power.

The most famous example may be Rwanda, to Uganda’s south. That country’s president, Paul Kagame, grew up as a refugee in Uganda and helped bring President Museveni to power in 1986, later working in the upper echelons of the country’s military. In 1990, Mr. Kagame and other Rwandans in Uganda started a rebel offensive in Rwanda, taking power in 1994 after stopping that country’s genocide.

Rwanda and Uganda enjoyed close relations for years, and still do, though some political observers argue that relations have since cooled.

In the 1990s, Uganda also teamed up with Rwanda to prop up a little-known soldier in eastern Congo, Laurent Kabila, who soon toppled the longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

In the meantime, Uganda has become a close military ally of the United States. Its forces make up the vast majority of a peacekeeping force to help bolster the shaky

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government in nearby Somalia, a major foreign policy priority for the United States. President Museveni recently called for a one-year extension of Somalia’s transitional government, threatening to pull out Ugandan troops otherwise.

“We contributed to Rwanda; we contributed to Congo; now we are talking about Sudan,” said Tamale Mirundi, a spokesperson for the Ugandan government. “Our mission is clear.”

Still, Mr. Mirundi said, “To be a superpower, that is not high on the agenda,” and that economic interests played second-fiddle to “African solidarity.”

After South Sudan, Rwanda and Congo rank among the top recipients of Ugandan exports. Rwanda recently switched its national language to English from French, and the country has hired many Ugandan teachers to work in its schools.

In Juba, people like Ms. Namwanje are pixels in a larger picture.

Working to save money for law school, Ms. Namwanje says she went against her parents’ wishes in crossing the border. They feared Sudan’s volatile security situation. Here, she said she had met many countrymen: motorcycle-taxi drivers, construction workers, traders like herself.

“Ugandans are the most here in Juba,” said Ms. Namwanje, whose business in the city’s largest market sells eggs for roughly four times the price they cost in Uganda. “We can get a profit, and much profit.”

Agaba Livingstone, who hails from Hoima, Uganda, said he could not agree more.

“There is no money like here,” said Mr. Livingstone, adding that he also disobeyed his parents’ wishes to come to Sudan.

“They heard that this country is in war, that they are killing themselves,” said Mr. Livingstone, who says he can make up to $100 each week collecting scrap metal and delivering vegetables to expensive hotels in town. “Now they are happy.”

But he said his parents’ prophecies proved true as well. South Sudan security forces have been implicated in widespread human-rights abuses, and Ugandans here say there has been a backlash against foreigners, who are often harassed and marginalized.

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“There are many problems people have here,” said Kasim Okwai, 25, a motorcycle-taxi driver in Juba, adding that he was robbed last month. He said he tried to complain to the police, but “they treat foreigners badly.”

But money makes it all worthwhile. For Mr. Okwai, the defining moment came three years earlier, watching as a frustrated young adult in his parents’ home in central Uganda as his older brother returned home from a trip to Sudan.

“I saw him coming back,” said Mr. Okwai. “Buying clothes; he built a home; so I said, ‘Why can’t I be like that?’ ”

Israel to recognize South Sudan as independent stateAs government scrambles to head off Palestinian bid for statehood at UN, it

conducts secret contacts with embryonic South Sudanese state.

By Ilan Lior and Barak Ravid

Israel is expected to recognize South Sudan as an independent state in the coming weeks, according to sources at the Foreign Ministry. South Sudan will declare its independence tomorrow at a ceremony attended by representatives from all over the world.

Israel is not sending a representative to the ceremony, but plans to announce that it recognizes the new state immediately after the United States and European Union countries do so.

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The readiness to recognize South Sudan come at the same time that Israel is conducting an international campaign to block the recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations General Assembly in September. Israel has argued that a Palestinian state must be established only as a result of negotiations and not by unilateral measures.

Sources at the Foreign Ministry said that contrary to a Palestinian state, South Sudan will declare its independence following negotiations and agreement, and thus Israel views positively the recognition of the new state.

In 2005 a peace agreement was signed between the government of Sudan and the interim government of South Sudan concluding a bloody civil war between Christians and Muslims. The decision to declare independence followed a plebiscite held in South Sudan in January.

The Foreign Ministry attaches great significance to South Sudan and appointed a special coordinator to deal with the subject several months ago. The ministry has been exchanging secret messages with the government of South Sudan for a long time.

In October 2010, the president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, declared that Israel is not an enemy and that he will weigh diplomatic relations with it, including the opening of an Israeli embassy in the capital, Juba.

More than 8,000 refugees from Sudan live in Israel. While no decision has been made it is likely that following the establishment of diplomatic relations, Israel will seek to repatriate most of the refugees to South Sudan.

JUBA-LATION: A South Sudanese group performing a traditional celebration dance during preparations for tomorrow’s Independence Day ceremony in the capital Juba.

Photo by: Reuters

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Israel also has security concerns since Sudan has been a transit area for smuggling of arms from Iran to the Gaza Strip. There are about 8,500 asylum seekers from Sudan in Israel today. Nearly 2,000 of them are thought to be from South Sudan.

Due to the situation in Sudan, Israel's treatment of Sudanese asylum seekers is guided by the recommendations of the UN Commission for Refugees. Most are arrested after crossing the border from Egypt and are taken by the IDF to the Saharonim holding area in the Negev. The Immigration and Population Authority then processes the refugees and identifies them. If they prove they are from Sudan, they are released and given a temporary visa.

Even after South Sudan declares independence, the standing of asylum seekers living in Israel is not expected that to change. The UN Commission for Refugees will continue monitoring developments in Sudan and only in a few months will it advise the Interior Ministry on the matter.

However, even if the situation in Sudan is deemed sufficiently stable for the refugees to return, another problem exists: Israel has no diplomatic ties with Sudan, which is defined as an enemy state. As such, it is likely that Israel will not expel the asylum seekers back to their country.

During the past few months, in a special arrangement with the Sudanese authorities and with the help of a Christian organization operating in Israel, several hundred Sudanese asylum seekers agreed to return to their country. The UN Commission for Refugees verified that every one of them had opted to return to Sudan out of free will and not because of economic or other pressures.

BBCSouth Sudan war widow: 'I will have a country at last'

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Sarah Nyakuoth William is a retired nurse and the widow of one of the founding fathers of the rebel movement which fought for South Sudan's independence.

An estimated 1.5 million people died in conflict between the Arabic-speaking Muslim north and the south, which is made up of numerous ethnic groups who are mostly Christians and animists.

Mrs William tells the BBC about the years of struggle and her feelings as the long cherished dream of separation from Khartoum is about to become reality on 9 July.

Testimony:

It has been a long journey to this point”Sarah Nyakuoth WilliamIndependence is a day we have been waiting for many years - for as long as I can remember.

Even if I am poor I am rich, because I will have a country. I can just sleep under a tree, and I will be happy.

When I threw my vote into the ballot box for the referendum for independence in January, I said: "This is my time."

I raised the flag with my vote - we all did, all the 99% who chose independence.

People were laughing, singing, dancing all night long.

That was when we knew that our freedom is coming.

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I am around 65 years old, but I am estimating because my parents were villagers from Upper Nile and did not have records.

It has been a long journey to this point.

Fell in loveMy husband fought with the rebels in the bush in the first war in the south - "the Any Nya" that war was called.

That was in the 1960s when we were fighting for separation from the north of Sudan.

I had fallen in love with a man in the bush. His name was William Nyoun Bany and we had got married.

The SPLA fought the north for more than two decades until the 2005 peace dealWe had to stay together. We ended up running together to Ethiopia for safety as refugees,

and I trained as nurse, helping the people there.

Then there was a peace agreement in 1972 [when the south was granted more autonomy from the north].

We had hoped that the peace would bring a better time, so we came back for the south.

That night I slept for safety in the church, then I escaped the next day on foot - I walked with my younger children all the way to Ethiopia.”Sarah Nyakuoth WilliamI went to work in Malakal, in Upper Nile, as a nurse. I was trained by the national army.

My husband too, from being a bush fighter, was now integrated into the army, based in Ayod in Jonglei State.

But in 1983 the rebellion started again [after the north announced the imposition of Sharia law across the whole country].

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I remember the commanders, who came to form the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) - my husband included - meeting at this time. I would bring them lots of tea as they talked.

But when the actual fighting started I was in Malakal, and my husband was far away.

We didn't know exactly what was going on, and it was frightening, because I had the little children with me.

I was told: "Your husband is a well-known man, if you are caught you will be killed."

I was told: "You have to move, you have to escape out of Malakal."

Husband killedSo that night I slept for safety in the church, then I escaped the next day on foot - I walked with my younger children all the way to Ethiopia.

The independence celebrations are expected to highlight the south's cultural heritageThat is a long way.

We could not travel as fast as the men or the older children who were also heading to Ethiopia, so it took time to cross all the way.

Along the way we got to where my husband had been - he had moved on, but we got news there of where to go next.

After several weeks we got to Ethiopia - and once again I worked there as a nurse, looking after the refugees, the children and the wounded men who came back from the fighting.

I knew we'd get here in the end, but I didn't know if I would ever see the day”Sarah Nyakuoth WilliamWhen President Mengistu [Haile Mariam, Ethiopia's leader] was deposed in 1991 we had to flee again, and we moved to Kenya to another refugee camp.

From there my six children have scattered across the world, even to Cuba and Canada.I lived in Kenya but worked for aid agencies as a nurse - going in and out of southern Sudan.Now I live in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, and I am retired.

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My husband died during infighting in the SPLA - when people were confused and there were factions.

I don't blame the factions, they were all brave fighters.

He died for this day coming, independence day, and reaching that will be the day that I can forget all the bad memories, because the journey will have been reached.

I knew we'd get here in the end, but I didn't know if I would ever see the day.

Finally the day is here.

I'm happy, happy for the future for my children, and all of South Sudan.

VOA NEWS.COMA "Lost Boy of Sudan" Reflects on South Sudan

IndependenceMac Deng, one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan", says he hopes their new country would one day be like the United StatesJames Butty

Photo: APSudan Juba Profile flagWhen South Sudan becomes Africa’s newest country Saturday, the “Lost Boys of Sudan” will be celebrating the occasion with their fellow South Sudanese.During Sudan’s 21-year civil war, thousands of young boys from mostly the Dinka ethnic group were separated from their families and forced to walk about a 1,000 miles to reach safe havens.Mac Deng, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” who is studying environmental

science at the University of the District of Columbia here in Washington, D.C., said even thought he did not support separation from the beginning, Saturday promises to be an exciting day for all South Sudanese.

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“At first I just didn’t feel like to be in support of separation. But eventually it is a split, so I have to join the majority, and again, it’s going to be an exciting day, and I am happy to go forward,” he says.Deng, who said he fought in the South Sudan liberation army, said he did not want a divided Sudan at first because he thought he fought for a one Sudan.

APSouthern Sudanese from the Dinka tribe take part in a rehearsal celebration for independence in the southern capital of Juba, July 5, 2011“I was a soldier, and I was fighting for the freedom for all of us, liberation for the whole Sudan. But lastly, we decided to split. That wasn’t my thinking,” Deng said.

He said he and a number of other south Sudanese who had reservation about separation are ready to support the majority who voted for separation.“Most of us are very excited, but there are some people like me who still disagree, but lastly we all come together at the end and we join the majority and it’s not about one person anymore,” he said.Deng, who said he is from the town of Bor in south Sudan, said a lot has changed for him since he and other “Lost Boys of Sudan” arrived in the United States nine years ago.“Being here is great. I’m the only one in my family in America getting educated, and looking back home, a lot of things have changed. We talk to people back home. We tell them that this is how life is in America and we should have the same thing over there,” Deng said.He said even though the soon-to-be new country of south Sudan will face many challenges, he and other “Lost Boys of Sudan” are hoping that one day south Sudan will be like the United States.“I tell them (his family in Sudan) that this is a peaceful place to be, although it is not peaceful to some other Americans. I send money sometime to my family, and I think our country should be like America too, even though there are political issues. Yes, that’s all we hope for, betterment for everybody,” Deng said.

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South Sudan will need strong partnerships to tackle challenges ahead – Ban

South Sudan prepares for its independence on 9 July 20117 July 2011 – South Sudan, which is just days away from becoming the world’s newest country, will need to develop a broad set of partnerships – with the North, with its neighbours and its own people – to tackle the

“daunting” challenges it faces, says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

On 9 July, Mr. Ban and a host of foreign dignitaries will converge on Juba, the capital of the soon-to-be Republic of South Sudan, to watch the new nation raise its flag and inaugurate its first president, Salva Kiir.

South Sudan’s independence follows a referendum held in January in line with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement – the 2005 accord that ended the decades-long North-South civil war in Sudan.

“For the more than eight million citizens of South Sudan, it will be a momentous and emotional day,” the Secretary-General wrote in an op-ed published today in The New York Times ahead of Saturday’s independence ceremony.

“Yet, nationhood has come at steep cost,” he added. “When the assembled presidents and prime ministers board their official planes to return home, the challenges that remain will be daunting indeed.”

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On the day of its birth, Mr. Ban noted, South Sudan will rank near the bottom of all recognized human development indices, including the world’s highest maternal mortality rate and a female illiteracy rate of over 80 per cent.

“Critical issues of poverty, insecurity and lack of infrastructure must all be addressed by a relatively new government with little experience and only embryonic institutions,” said Mr. Ban, adding that the risk of increased violence, harm to civilian populations and further humanitarian suffering is “very real.”

At the same time, he noted, South Sudan has remarkable potential, given its substantial oil reserves, huge amounts of arable land and the Nile River flowing through its centre.

“Alone, South Sudan cannot meet these challenges nor realize its potential. Doing so will require partnership – a full (and ongoing) engagement with the international community and, most especially, South Sudan’s neighbours.”

Mr. Ban highlighted the need for the country’s new leaders, first and foremost, to reach out to their counterparts in the Government of Sudan, stressing that strong, peaceful relations with the North are essential.

“A priority for both countries is agreement on their common border, sustainable relations to ensure both States can benefit from the oil revenues in the region, and cross-border arrangements to continue their strong historical, economic and cultural ties,” he stated.

He noted that recent instability in Southern Kordofan and Abyei have strained North-South relations and heightened political rhetoric. “Now is the time for both the North and the South to think of the long-term benefits of working together, not short-term political gains at the other’s expense,” he said.

South Sudan must also reach out to its other neighbours, both in Africa and across the globe, the Secretary-General stated. It must also reach out to its own people. “It must find strength in diversity and build institutions that represent the full constellation of its broad geographic and ethnic communities.”

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, where he is on an official visit, Mr. Ban commended the leadership of both North and South for the progress they have made to date. “And let us emphasize that the path of prosperity and stability lies in

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peace and partnership – cemented at the negotiating table and supported by the entire international community.”

UN officials have highlighted the grave humanitarian impact of the fighting between northern and southern forces in Southern Kordofan that has displaced an estimated 73,000 people since it began a few weeks ago.

Haile Menkerios, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS) that is due to end on 9 July, urged both sides to “display the same leadership that allowed the end of the North-South war,” to rapidly end this new confrontation, cease hostilities and resolve all pending disputes through dialogue.

“As in the past, the United Nations stands ready to assist the parties in resolving their differences and implementing new agreements they now must find,” he told a news conference.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the security situation in Southern Kordofan remains tense and volatile, with fighting reported near the main town of Kadugli every day over the past week.

While humanitarian agencies have access to Kadugli town, access to locations outside of Kadugli for aid activities is still being denied, it added. UN agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are continuing to provide assistance where possible.

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