Sudan: Politicians try to prevent violence
Jun 24 2008
Postings >> Sudan

Northern and southern politicians have taken joint decisive action to try to head off an escalation of violence along the north-south border.

President Omar al-Bashir and Vice-President Salva Kiir, who represents the south, agreed to send a joint battalion of northern and southern troops to help restore security around the disputed town of Abyei.

Recent clashes between soldiers and militias from the north and troops from the south have left Abyei in ruins and at least 60 people dead, according to the UN. The town, in a remote oil-rich border area, is claimed by both north and south.

Bashir and Kiir have also agreed to find an international arbiter to look at the unresolved issue of boundary demarcation around Abyei. President Bashir rejected the 'final and binding' ruling of the Abyei Boundary Commission report of July 2005, flouting a condition of the 2005 peace accord and opening up a dangerous political vacuum in the region.

The peace accord marked the end of more than two decades of civil war which claimed the lives of about 2 million Sudanese people.

Thank God for politicians' fresh attempts to restore security around Abyei.

Pray that this will help re-envision politicians about the need to build the peace between the Arab and Muslim north and the mainly Christian or animist south.