70.000 Dinka on the run from Northern Sudanese troops are in urgent need of food and medicine!

An urgent call for help from Sudan has reached the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) a few minutes ago. The Southern Sudanese physician Dr. Modesto Arkangelo reported to the human rights organization that about 70.000 members of the Dinka Ngok await fast help in the area of Abyei – a region near the border to South Sudan, which is rich in raw materials. They were forced to flee from invading Northern Sudanese troops. "These people left everything behind when their region was attacked last Saturday. They fled to the province Bar al-Ghazal in South Sudan. Due to the rainy season, we fear that especially children and elderly people might not cope with the struggle" says Dr. Modesto. "Also, there is a high danger of malaria infections breaking out at this time of the year. The refugees are in urgent need of emergency assistance: food, medicine and temporary shelter. "

The Abyei region, where there are huge oil reserves, is fought over by North and South Sudan. The population in this area is dominated by a majority of sub-Saharan Dinka Ngok – consisting of nine subgroups – who want the region to be assigned to South Sudan. The few Arab Misseriya nomads who inhabit the Abyei region during the dry period demand to be assigned to North Sudan. So far, the region has been under common administration. On Saturday, Northern Sudanese troops took over control after an encounter with Southern Sudanese troops.

North Sudan, led by General Omar al-Bashir, has so far declined any consensual solution to the conflict over Abyei. Neither did he accept a commission to determine the borders with international participation, nor a decision of the International Court in The Hague. On July 22nd of 2009, the court had decided that the greater part of the region's oil fields should belong to North Sudan while the areas inhabited by the Dinka Ngok should be assigned to South Sudan. However, Khartoum seems to have accepted this decision only fictitiously and has apparently never really given up the territorial claims upon the whole Abyei region.