African Media Coverage

August 16-31, 2009

Kenya: The Daily Nation
Gunmen kill 38 in escalating south Sudan violence
Published: 29 August 2009

Tribesmen shot dead 38 people -- including women, children and soldiers -- in an inter-tribal attack in southern Sudan where violence is escalating from seasonal cattle-raiding into revenge killings.

Southern officials have blamed at least some of the worsening fighting on agitators from Khartoum's ruling party who they say are arming civilians in the south to cause unrest ahead of a 2011 southern referendum on independence.

Around dawn on Friday armed members of the Lou Nuer tribe opened fire indiscriminately in a village in Jonglei state while attempting to steal cattle from its Dinka residents, the state's governor told Reuters.

"Thirty-eight people were killed and 64 wounded," Kuol Manyang said on Saturday. He said the dead included women and children and seven southern soldiers based in the Wernyol settlement in Twic East county of Jonglei.

Much of Jonglei is part of an oil concession owned a consortium led by France's Total that has remained largely unexplored due to decades of war.

Read the article here.

Uganda: The Daily Monitor
Refugees in Kampala City
Published: 23 August 2009

A typical conversation about refugees conjures up clichéd images of rural camps crowded with women and children, tightly packed mud huts and food sacs marked with the World Food Program logo.

Rarely does one think that the man driving a taxi in Nsambya or the woman selling matooke in Kisenyi is one of the 200,000 people who have escaped violence in neighbouring Congo, Sudan or Rwanda to settle here.

Yet, today there are almost 30,000 refugees in Uganda’s cities. They’ve left the settlements because life there is unsafe or because food handouts, education and health care services are inadequate and because they hope to find work.
But life in the city is hardly better; refugees face similar or worse challenges after they leave the camps.

Impoverished refugees cannot pay for medicine and school fees and struggle to find jobs since many don’t have work permits, don’t speak English or are discriminated against by employers who don’t want foreigners on the payroll.

Read the article here.

AllAfrica.com
Churches Call for North-South Peace to be 'Saved'
Statement from the Sudan Council of Churches’ 17th General Assembly, 10-14 August 2009

Aware of our spiritual responsibility, re-affirming our commitment to bringing about justice, peace and reconciliation, we, the Sudanese Church, represented by the highest governing body, delegates and guests of the SCC member churches, call upon all people of faith, our governments, our neighbours in the Region, the continent of Africa and the wider international community to join hands in a concerted effort to rescue the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) from collapsing, bring about peace in Western Sudan, provide security and peace to all our people, and thereby save the country and the whole region from being destabilised soon.

Deeply saddened and highly alarmed by the current situation and possible future scenarios in our country, we have spent four days of serious reflections to assess the current situation in our country, to reflect on our own role and responsibilities, and to plan how the Church in co-operation with our communities, our governments, our partners and all those, who committed themselves to the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement - signed on January 9, 2005, in Nairobi, Kenya - can respond to the severe obstacles and challenges we are facing all over Sudan.

Read the article here.