Shilluk IDPs yet to return home

Dressed colourfully, a group of women met on the banks of the River Nile, near the government-controlled garrison town of Malakal in the southern Sudanese state of Upper Nile. The women, all from Shilluk, sat near the local church and school, waiting for food hand-outs. Numbering more than 200, they were all internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had fled violence in their home towns and villages. Relief workers said there were at least 25,000 IDPs in Malakal. "It has been hard to live here," said Nyrapi Ojwok. "You need money for everything." The Shilluk woman explained that she had run away from her home village of Doaydowy, south of Malakal, after it was attacked by militias in March 2004, and had been living with relatives in Malakal ever since. Eventually, relief workers began to hand out food. "We are distributing one month's rations to groups of 32 individuals," Rose Cizario, field monitor for the World Food Programme in Malakal, told IRIN. Every group, she added, would receive eight 50 kg bags of sorghum, seven gallons of oil, 50 kg of mixed beans and soybeans, and 50 kg of lentils. "I am here with my husband and seven children, and we are staying with my sister," said Nyabenye Adung. She left her village of Pakang when fighting broke out in March 2004. Urbano Tito Tipo, field coordinator for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, commented on the Shilluk's location: "[They] have very strong social bonds, and will not allow their guests to be moved into schools or tented camps where they are registered as IDPs" he explained. "The IDPs now depend on their host relatives in Malakal, who themselves do not have enough food," Tipo added. "It is leading to the depletion of their food reserves." Government officials said by living with relatives, the IDPs had complicated the food distribution. "It is hard to determine who is an IDP and who is not, within Malakal, as most of them merged into the community," explained Joseph Mac, field officer for the government's Humanitarian Aid Commission in Upper Nile. History of Shilluk violence When Lam Akol, a Shilluk leader, and a number of other commanders split away from the mainstream SPLM/A in 1991, violent clashes erupted between the two groups and spread across the entire greater Upper Nile region. Relative stability returned to the Shilluk Kingdom, following the signing of the Fashoda Peace Agreement between the Sudanese government and Akol’s Sudan People's Liberation Movement-United (SPLM-United) in 1997. However violence in the kingdom started again in August 2003, when Akol, defected back to the mainstream Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) of John Garang. Under the Fashoda Agreement, the government now considered the kingdom part of the north and was unwilling to let it pass into SPLM/A hands. While the fighting had started between Shilluk militias loyal and opposed to Akol’s defection, it escalated when Nuer militias, aligned with the government, got involved at the beginning of 2004 and launched an offensive against Shilluk villages on the west banks of the Nile and Bahr el Ghazal rivers. According to reports by the US-sponsored Civilian Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT), this fighting culminated in the systematic destruction of numerous villages, as well as widespread looting of cattle, killing of civilians and the displacement of thousands. In an official reaction to the CPMT reports dated 15 April 2004, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs blamed the "magnitude of the casualties" on the "behaviour of the followers of the rebel Lam Akol", adding that "they were without uniform and deliberately used the civilians and their villages as human shields." UN agencies registered 25,410 displaced Shilluk in Malakal, 16,500 in the town of Tonga, and more than 10,000 in other areas close to Malakal, between March and July 2004. Planning for return Although international relief agencies had been distributing food to IDPs in Malakal since April 2004, they had failed to gain access to the Shilluk Kingdom itself, large parts of which remained under SPLM/A control. According to Eujidio Arkangelo, a relief worker in Malakal, people living in areas within the transitional zone [between north and south Sudan] had not received any aid because hostilities had prevented it from getting through. "Most people could not cultivate their lands last year as many of them had sought shelter in Malakal town," Adeng Anwour, team leader of the Malakal office of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) told IRIN on 25 February. "People lost most of their equipment - FAO is trying to provide them with new tools and seed supplies." After distributing materials to help people sustain themselves in the short term, relief agencies were planning to start rebuilding the health and educational infrastructures that were destroyed in the war. Aid workers have also urged the government to supplement their efforts. "On our own, we cannot do anything," Mary Thunus, resident project officer for the UN's Children's Fund, told IRIN. "We can build schools and supply school materials, but if they are not being used, and the government does not pay the teachers, nothing changes," she added. "We need a counterpart - in this case the government - to make these projects sustainable." However, observers said there was little incentive for the government to invest in long-term planning and service provision in this region. Under a peace agreement signed on 9 January 2005 by the government and the SPLM/A, this area of Upper Nile will become part of SPLM/A-controlled south Sudan in the near future. Fragile situation Ojwok said she hoped to go home soon, but only when she could find some support to rebuild her home. "It is still not safe," she said, "and my house has been burned to the ground." While aid agencies were discussing how to support the return of the IDPs, reports of troop movements across the Nile from Malakal, on 25 February, led to a renewed influx of Shilluk IDPs into the garrison town. Some of them had only recently attempted to return to their villages. However, the Shilluk King dismissed the rumours and issued a statement on the radio, calling on the IDPs to return to their villages. He sent four barges to facilitate the river crossing. "We have told our people to go back to their land to cultivate their crops," Edward Amum, the Shilluk paramount chief, told IRIN on 25 February. Tipo confirmed that some IDPs were starting to return to their homes, but noted they remained cautious. "What they really need is the confidence that the security situation does not deteriorate again," he said.