DanChurchAid
Sudan
Peace settlement faces problems
This is said by Mads Frilander, programme officer in DanChurchAid in South Sudan.
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| Lots of South Sudanese people are leaving the Kakuma camp in Kenya. Last year more than 19,000 Sudanese refugees returned home to South Sudan. This year the figure is approximately 4,000. |
The peace settlement which in 2005 ended 21 years’ of civil war forms the basis of a reform of Sudan’s military regime which has caused many of the conflicts in the country.
The settlement includes a division of Sudan’s oil wealth and several democratic processes which should lead to a national election in 2009.
In 2011, South Sudan will vote on independence from North Sudan.
Several issues in the peace settlement are lagging behind and have reached a deadlock.
The ruling National Congress Party in the North, NCP, does not accept the historical delineation of frontiers, which is referred to in the peace settlement, as demarcated by a special border commission. SPLM in the South is not prepared to renegotiate the frontier agreement and last year they withdrew from the national interim government in Khartoum, because they believed that NCP would sabotage the peace settlement and also that NCP was hiding the country’s real income from oil.
SPLM is once again part of the government but the problems have not been solved.
Continue the pressure
| A country at war |
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| Sudan has around 38.6 million inhabitants. 
Apart from an 11-year-long period, Sudan has been at war since its independence in 1956 from the British/Egyptian colonial rule. The civil war between North- and South Sudan was formally ended on 9. January 2005. |
In spite of the challenges, DanChurchAid’s programme officer in Juba in South Sudan believes in progress.
”I believe that peace will last if everybody who has been involved in drawing up the settlement maintain focus on its execution.
The international society has an important role to play in making the parties stick to the settlement and to fulfil their promises of economic and technical support,” Mads Frilander says.
Through local partners DanChurchAid supports development in areas which are highly marginalised and affected by conflicts namely the states Jonglei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
The partners build and expand schools, re-establish farming and inform people of the peace settlement so that they e.g. become aware that they are entitled to participate in democratic elections.
Furthermore they work with conflict resolution, ammunition clearance and mine risk education in the Nuba mountains.
Sudan
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