Profiles

March 29, 2008 (Beirut NSV) - With no end to their exile and suffering, Sudanese refugees in Lebanon are swamped with multitudes of challenges in a country where they are living illegally.

“People need to know the situation is bad,” Bol Athuai,38, a resident of Edmonton, Canada, said of the refugees’ ordeal in Lebanon after he had himself toughed it out in the country from 1997-2007, when the UN resettled him in Canada.

Similar to many of his colleagues who found new homes in Western countries such as Australia, USA and Canada, Bol’s chances of resettling to Canada were enhanced after he landed in jail for being in the country illegally. In prison, the United Nations-Lebanon learned about his case through his friends who had alerted them about his dire condition.

While in jail Bol followed up with officials from the Canadian embassy on resettlement papers until he finally arrived in Canada last year, after waiting for five years. To get his visa stamped, he made a payment of $3000. Continue reading »

Toronto, CA - My beloved father, Ahang Beny Acuar, was born around the year 1938 in Aturok, Yirol, Southern Sudan. His parents were Beny Acuar (Father) and Kulang Mou Kacuol (Mother). As a small child, my father was brilliant and precocious and had a lot of patience and wisdom. For that reason, his father chose him from among his siblings (older brother Madol, younger brothers Macar, Kon (deceased 2007) and Cieng, and sister Acuoth) to attend school. At that time, the schools were run by British missionaries. My beloved father first attended Loka Primary School, where he excelled and from there went on to Rumbek Secondary School. Among his classmates in these early years were some of the most influential Southern Sudanese nationalists, intellectuals and political leaders.

Again, he excelled academically at Rumbek Secondary School and won a coveted spot at the University of Khartoum, making him among the earliest Southern Sudanese to attend the University of Khartoum. Continue reading »

Always referred to simply as Ajing Path; for those who knew him or not, that name will be hard to pronounce from now onwards. But for those with interest in Abyei and Sudan in general they will always remember Ajing's groundbreaking statement exposing the cause he laid his life for; “The problem of Abyei if you don’t know it, it is oil, if people were to negotiate the peace agreement before oil could be discovered in Abyei, the Abyei problem would have been solved by presidential decree and Abyei would have returned as it came,” (SRS). Dinka Ngok, Misseriya, Dinka Malual, Nuer and the entire SPLA\M leadership will not forget this man who has just joined his ancestors. "Ajing" etymologically in Jieng tongue speaks for the life of the bearer of the name. Continue reading »

Sudan is a country with the highest number of IDPs in the world. Since 2003 when Darfur revolution kicked off, the number soared from 4 to 6 million. One time during north-south conflict, the former UN Chief appointed Dr. Francis Mading Deng to head UN body responsible for the rights of internally displaced persons, IDPs. The interest of UN appointing one of Sudan’s distinguished officials wasn't a coincidence of Sudanese heritage hosting IDPs. It is on record that during his tenure heading IDP department in the UN, Dr. Francis Deng never had good working relationship with Sudanese government headed then by strict Islamist-cum-theologians-cum military leaders in Khartoum. When he visited Sudan after his appointment, Dr. Continue reading »

Displacement of Ngok people:

Abyei by 1960s was already a hard place for Dinka Ngok as protection from Kordofan region dwindled with rulers in Khartoum subjecting the citizens to various forms of hatred with intention of extermination from the rich pastoral lands of the region. This was long before the oil discovery and boom. Many young men from Abyei who went northward to study in El-Obeid, Kadugli, Fulla, Nahud and much further never returned home as the place was hostile for upcoming Ngok cadres. Abyei was evacuated with thousands of its citizens settling in Sennar, Dongola, Medeni, Port Sudan, Gaderif and Khartoum; few remained behind around Kordofan. Continue reading »

On August 12th I contacted the Sudan People's Liberation Movement Political Bureau and National Council member, Yasir Said Arman in Pennsylvania, United States via telephone. Admittedly, I was hesitant on how to begin the conversation if he picked up the phone. I waited anxiously on the other end of the line for Arman's voice. Then came a voice but it was an answering machine. So I left a message introducing myself, requesting interview and promising to call again. It was the first time to be introduced to Hon. Said Arman so I wasn't expecting a call back.

Two days passed. Again, I dialled Hon. Yasir Arman's number several times till I finally made some headway. This time he answers. "Hello," he said. "Hello," I answered. "Is this Yasir Arman," I begun. "Yes," he answered. I told him I had left a message previously requesting an interview for www.newsudanvision.com. "Yes, I got your message," he replied. We talked briefly for about ten minutes before saying bye for the night. He told me we could conduct the interview during the evening of August 15th if I was free. Continue reading »

I was off for a soccer field to shake off boredom like any other jobless young people in the dusty semi-arid Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, after fleeing war in 1991 when my village was besieged by militias loyal to Islamic Fundamentalists in Khartoum, resulting in one of the ugliest sight of mass murder of people and cattle I have ever seen. Manyok, on the other hand, was running from Ethiopia in the same year when war erupted in the country after the fall of the then Ethiopian communist ruler, Mengistu Haili Mariam who supported the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/SPLM).

It was year 2000. I returned home in the evening to find it teeming with activity and excitement. My mother and several other relatives were preparing, literally called ‘burning’ in Dinka language, cake and other delicacies suitable for a journey. Before I’d have a cup of water, one of my cousins, Manyok’s sister, Achan Biar Chagai, ecstatic, informed me that “we were going to Canada,” me, Manyok and my other cousin Ayen Ayuen Angeth, after being added to a form by her brother Angok Ayuen Angeth, who was not in Kakuma but Ifo Refugee Camp in northern Kenya at the time. Continue reading »

In the middle of the 20th century, Rumbek Secondary School was the epitome of knowledge in South Sudan. The school was to South Sudan leaders as Alliance, Lenana, and Mungu High Schools are to Kenyan leaders. Rumbek was as prestigious to South Sudan as Eton of England is to the English society. Indeed, it was in Rumbek where the seeds of South Sudan struggle for freedom were planted. The best minds from all corners of South Sudan were sorted out through a sterling academic performance at the regional junior schools before the brilliant ones were converged in Rumbek where they were moulded to fit for Sudan as well as for the Southern leadership. It's in this regard that John Garang de Mabior, one of the brilliant students of high academic standing entered Rumbek Senior Secondary School in Senior One in the earlier 1960s.

However, the earlier 1960s saw Christian missionaries expelled from South Sudan by the oppressive Arab minority controlled government of Sudan. Continue reading »

Both's story is that of courage, persistence, perseverance, hardwork, and hope. Those values coupled with his willingness to make the impossible become possible enabled him to surmount the hills and mountains in the terrains of life in order to attain the level that would only be attained by those with the fortune of being born and raised in prosperous and peaceful countries.Both's story like other untold inspiring stories of Sudanese is one through which we can make a connection with and use it as a fuel to propel us to surmount many terrains of life.
I had known Peter Lam Both only as an SPLM Party and Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) representative in Canada. I knew none of the strings attached to his bow.

On a search for my school research materials in one of the libraries in Alberta in Canada, I ran into one of his books: "South Sudan: Forgotten Tragedy." On seeing the words “South Sudan" and its "forgotten tragedy" being recorded in a book published and placed in one of the best libraries in the country, I was curious to know who the author was. Continue reading »