Parliament urged to solve Abyei headache
A civil society activist has called on the national parliament to raise a motion on the final status of the disputed Abyei Special Administrative Area.
The Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, said both Sudan and South Sudan have been “dragging their feet” on the status of the disputed area.
Mr. Yakani said determining Abyei status would end the cycle of intercommunal violence between Ngok Dinka and Sudan’s Misseriya ethnicity that has continued to claim lives and displaced thousands since South Sudan seceded in 2011 from former Sudan.
“It is high time for our parliament to raise a motion to handle the status of Abyei,” Mr. Yakani said.
“Our parliament should not be watching the loss of human lives and property in Abyei through the continuous deadly Misseriya attacks on the Dinka Ngok population.”
He said the silence by Juba and Khartoum on Abyei status means support for human rights violations being committed in the area by the perpetrators and should be immediately stopped to save the lives of the Abyei community. .
“Both Juba and Khartoum have to speed up the process of defining the status of Abyei. The dragging of feet on the status after the independence of South Sudan from the rest of Sudan in July 2011 is an intentional act that may be described as an intended purpose of torturing the sons and daughters of Abyei. This is an unacceptable act or strategy of both Juba and Khartoum on Abyei, “he said.
Mr. Yakani’s call came a week after senior South Sudanese politicians and scholars, Bona Malual Madut and Francis Mading Deng, issued a joint statement calling on leaders of the two countries to expedite a solution to Abyei’s final status.
“We call on the government of South Sudan to actively and promptly engage the government of Sudan to expedite the resolution of the final status of Abyei in accordance with the aspirations of the Ngok Dinka of Abyei,” the statement read.
“We believe these recent events should not undermine hundreds of years of peaceful coexistence, intermarriages, and shared cultural values between Ngok and Twic Dinka.
Last week, the Spokesperson of the Abyei Area Administrative Area, Ajak Deng Miyan, reported that 41 civilians got killed, 13 were wounded, and 1,913 herds of cattle were raided on three occasions in fresh attacks alleged to have been initiated by the Misseriya militia.
Despite the fact that Ngok Dinka chose to be a part of South Sudan in a 99.9 per cent unilateral referendum vote in 2013, neither South Sudan nor Sudan have recognised or rejected the result. The international community has also kept quiet since then.
The oil-rich Abyei region, which is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, was granted special status by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The area is being governed by administrators from both sides.
