• African Union brings Sudan, rebels together for peace talks
• Sudan, South Sudan agree to open 10 border crossings
• UN mission verifies start of Sudan, South Sudan withdrawal from zone in Abyei

• Over a decade of war in South Darfur
• South Sudan's gender gap still too wide
• Aid agencies face violence and arrests in South Sudan

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Positive Trends
Short Summaries of Top Stories

African Union brings Sudan, rebels together for peace talks
24 April 2013 - The African Union on Wednesday brought together for the first time for peace talks Sudan and insurgents fighting government troops in two states bordering South Sudan, in a conflict that has affected almost a million people. On Wednesday, an AU panel led by mediator Thabo Mbeki, a former South African president, met with Sudanese delegation chief Ibrahim Ghandour and the SPLM-North's leader, Yassir Arman, in Addis Ababa at the start of peace talks, diplomats attending the negotiations said. (more)

Sudan, South Sudan agree to open 10 border crossings
23 April 2013 - Sudan and South Sudan agreed on Tuesday to open 10 crossings along their joint border to boost travel and trade after a thaw in relations between two sides that had come close to war. Sudan closed the border after South Sudan's secession in 2011 -- hitting traders and communities on both sides. Almost a year after the split, border skirmishes brought both countries close to full-blown war over unresolved disputes about oil, territory, and other issues. (more)

UN mission verifies start of Sudan, South Sudan withdrawal from zone in Abyei
26 March 2013 - The United Nations peacekeeping force in the oil-rich Abyei area, which is contested by South Sudan and Sudan, has completed its first verification mission to make sure that troops from both Governments pull out of the demilitarized border zone. 'This first joint verification mission by Sudan and South Sudan is an important first step toward implementing all security arrangements between the two countries. There's more to do, and it is essential for long-term peace in the region that both countries build on this success,' said Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous. (more)

Sudans agree to restart oil flow after border deal
12 March 2013 - South Sudan said on Tuesday it would be ready to restart oil production within three weeks after finalizing a deal to resolve bitter border and security disputes with its neighbour and long-time foe Sudan. Landlocked South Sudan shut down its 350,000 barrel-per-day crude output in January last year in a row with Sudan over how much it should pay to send the oil through Sudanese pipelines to the Red Sea. (more)

Sudan, South Sudan to withdraw forces from buffer zone
9 March 2013 - Sudan and South Sudan agreed on Friday to order their forces out of a demilitarized border zone within a week, a mediator said, possibly opening the way to the resumption of oil exports from the south. Defence ministers from both sides met on Friday for a new round of talks in Addis Ababa to set up a buffer zone along their frontier. Former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who chairs an African Union mediation panel, said the two had agreed to order their forces out of the demilitarized zone by 14 March. (more)

UN Secretary-General welcomes new border agreements between Sudan and South Sudan
8 March 2013 - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed an agreement on signed on 8 March by Sudan and South Sudan which aim to strengthen border security and lead to the permanent resolution of outstanding issues between the two countries. The agreement, according to a statement released by Mr Ban's spokesperson, concerns the establishment of a safe demilitarized border zone, the deployment of a joint border verification, and monitoring mechanism and the activation of agreed security-related mechanisms as of 10 March 2013. (more)

Sudan: Bashir, Kiir commit to implementing agreement
28 January 2013 - Sudan and South Sudan Presidents Omer Al-Bashir and Salva Kiir committed themselves to implement the cooperation agreement they signed in September of last year following a meeting held with several African leaders in Addis Ababa on Sunday. Before their African counterparts from South Africa, Cote d'Ivore, and Nigeria, the two leaders vowed to seek seriously to implement cooperation agreement and to observe the outcome of the AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) meeting held on Friday 25 January. (more)

South Sudan withdraws from border with Sudan
17 January 2013 - South Sudan says it is withdrawing its troops from a disputed border region with Sudan so that a demilitarized zone can be established. The decision could be a first step toward South Sudan getting its oil industry online again. The south hasn't pumped oil since early in 2012, depriving its impoverished government of needed funds. South Sudan's troop withdrawal is in line with a security agreement reached with Sudan in September. At a meeting between the countries' Presidents earlier this month the two agreed to implement the September deals to get the oil flowing again. (more)

Leaders of Sudan, South Sudan to meet in second push for peace
15 January 2013 - The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan will hold their second summit in a month on 24 January, a Sudanese official said on Tuesday, in a fresh bid to defuse tensions over oil, territory, and other disputes. Security officials from both countries are currently holding talks in Addis Ababa to discuss practical steps to set up a buffer zone along the disputed border. (more)

Sudan, South Sudan agree once again to set up buffer zone
6 January 2013 - The Presidents of Sudan and South Sudan agreed on Saturday to set up a demilitarized zone along their disputed border, a condition for restarting oil exports, an African Union mediator said on Saturday, without giving a time frame. Sudan's state news agency SUNA said both Presidents had agreed in the final summit communique to implement all existing deals and set up the buffer zone without delay. (more)

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Flops
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Over a decade of war in South Darfur
17 March 2013 - Sudanese rebels said on Saturday they had killed more than 200 soldiers in South Darfur, but the government said its troops had suffered only a 'number' of casualties and repulsed an ambush. War broke out in the western region of Darfur over a decade ago and has raged ever since despite two peace accords and the presence of the world's largest peacekeeping mission. The main insurgent groups, who accuse the government of marginalising the region's ethnic minorities, have refused to join a Qatar-backed peace process that led to a deal between Khartoum and an umbrella of smaller rebel factions in 2011. While violence is down from its peak in 2003 and 2004, new fighting has forced more than 130,000 people to flee their homes since the start of the year, according to the United Nations. (more)

South Sudan's gender gap still too wide
8 March 2013 - Years after the end of South Sudan's war with Sudan, the country's women still find themselves on the front line -- this time, battling abuse, child marriage, and a dowry system that commodifies them from birth. 'You can't speak to people about going to the police if they don't even think it's wrong,' said Paleki Matthew, who runs the NGO South Sudan Women's Empowerment Network (SSWEN). Marriage itself can set the stage for abuse. The age of consent in South Sudan is 18, but the 2010 Sudan Household Health Survey indicates about 38 per cent of girls are married before that age; this figure rises to 54 per cent for the poorest households. Additionally, many members of the police and judiciary still practice early marriage, reinforcing the tradition. 'It's tradition itself which puts the women in a very submissive position. If you see agriculture, you see all the processes are being done by women -- from farming to selling at market. But when it comes to money, the men control everything,' said Teresa Aduong. (more)

Aid agencies face violence and arrests in South Sudan
11 February 2013 - Aid agencies working in South Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, are under regular threat from members of the security services who beat or arrest them or commandeer their equipment, the United Nations said on Monday.South Sudan has been struggling to reform its bloated security services since it split from Sudan in 2011 after a long civil war that has left it awash with weapons. Human rights groups regularly accuse South Sudan's army, an assortment of poorly-trained former guerrilla fighters known as the SPLA, of abuses against civilians. Vincent Lelei, country head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the number of incidents hampering the work of aid agencies had jumped almost 50 per cent last year. In addition, daunting bureaucracy impedes the agencies' daily work and delays visas and work permits, Lelei said. (more)

South Sudan attack leaves more than 100 dead
10 February 2013 - More than 100 people have been killed in South Sudan in an attack by rebels and ethnic allies on a convoy of families from a rival tribe and their cattle, an official said on Sunday. Since breaking from Sudan in 2011, oil-producing South Sudan has struggled to assert control over remote territories awash with weapons after a 1983-2005 war with the north and torn by ethnic rivalries. The attack on Friday was the worst violence in Jonglei State since 900 people were killed there in tribal attacks linked to cattle rustling in 2011, the United Nations said. Rebels loyal to former theology student David Yau Yau and members of the Murle community had killed 103 people in the ambush on ethnic Lou Nuer families, state governor Kuol Manyang said. Yau Yau rebelled in July last year. South Sudan accuses Sudan of dropping weapons and ammunition to Yau Yau's rebels, an allegation denied by Khartoum. (more)

South Sudan admits it downed United Nations helicopter, killing four
22 December 2012 - South Sudan's army shot down a United Nations peacekeeping helicopter in the restive Jonglei state on Friday, killing the four Russian crew members onboard, UN and military officials said. A UN source said the helicopter was on a reconnaissance mission in an area where the SPLA, South Sudan's army, has been fighting rebels led by David Yau Yau. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the attack on the 'clearly marked' helicopter and in a statement called 'on the government of South Sudan to immediately carry out an investigation and bring to account those responsible for this act'. In September, South Sudanese soldiers killed at least 10 troops when they shot and sank one of their own military riverboats in a remote region after mistaking it for an enemy craft, the army said. South Sudan has been struggling since independence to build up state institutions in a country awash with weapons after decades of civil war with Khartoum ended with a 2005 peace agreement. Human rights groups often accuse the SPLA, a loose group of former guerillas, of human rights violations and abuses. (more)

Borders and boundaries draw friction in South Sudan
6 December 2012 - Sudan, once Africa's largest country, was carved in two in July 2011, but nearly a year and a half later the new nations are still quarrelling over where to draw the frontier. A November bombing in Kiir Adem was a reminder that lingering hostility could yet torpedo a fragile peace, despite some progress in high-level talks between the two governments. Conflict between the old civil war foes over the border, migrants, and minerals, has already done huge damage to both economies and brought them to the brink of all-out war in April. With both sides seeking to placate domestic hardliners who resist concessions, compromise has been hard to reach. Several contested areas produce oil and are thought to hold deposits of copper and uranium, further raising the stakes. (more)

Hepatitis hits more than 1,000 refugees in South Sudan: UNHCR
11 November 2012 - An outbreak of hepatitis E has infected at least 1,050 Sudanese refugees in South Sudan, killing 26 and threatening to spread further among people still arriving in crowded camps, the United Nations said on Friday. About 175,000 people have already fled to South Sudan to escape fighting in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said. Thousands more are expected to cross in coming weeks after the rainy season ends, it added. 'To date, 26 refugees have died in camps in Upper Nile (state),' UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing in Geneva. 'The capacity to contain an outbreak of hepatitis E among the refugee population is increasingly jeopardized. The risks will grow if, as currently anticipated, we see fresh inflows of refugees from South Kordofan and Blue Nile states,' he said. The virus, contracted and spread through contaminated food and water, damages the liver and can be fatal. (more)

South Sudan expels UN human rights officer
4 November 2012 - South Sudan said on Sunday it had expelled a UN human rights investigator, accusing her of writing false reports, a move the UN mission said broke the country's legal obligations to the United Nations. UN sources, who named the officer as Sandra Beidas, said the expulsion may have been related to an August report accusing the army of abuses. Human rights groups accuse the new nation, which depends heavily on Western donors, of allowing abuses by its security forces, mostly composed of poorly-trained former guerrilla and militia fighters. Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused South Sudan's army of gross human rights violations during a disarmament campaign aimed at stopping inter-tribal warfare in Jonglei. (more)

South Sudan police fire on student protest - witnesses
31 October 2012 - South Sudanese police fired live ammunition at students protesting against a suspected land-grab of school property in Juba, wounding two people including a teacher, witnesses said on Wednesday. Human rights groups often criticise South Sudan's security forces, composed mostly of former guerrilla soldiers, over rights abuses and have urged the newly-independent government to better control its police and army. Four witnesses said police arrived at the Juba Day Secondary School in the capital on Wednesday morning and started beating students who were protesting against the construction of a clinic, the International Freedom Hospital. The students, who say the land where the clinic is being built belongs to the school, threw stones at the police in response. A second group of police then arrived in a vehicle and shot in the air and at the students, the witnesses said. (more)

South Sudan accuses Sudan of bombing, suspends direct talks
21 July 2012 - South Sudan accused Sudan on Saturday of bombing its territory along a disputed borderland and suspended direct talks with its neighbour over oil and security issues, but Khartoum denied the charge. The two countries split peacefully last year under a 2005 agreement that ended decades of civil war. But many issues remain unsolved, and the two old foes came close to all-out war in April after border clashes escalated. South Sudanese military spokesman Philip Aguer said Sudanese warplanes had bombed the village area of Rumaker in the Northern Bahr al Ghazal border state on Friday morning. South Sudan said it would suspend direct talks scheduled for Sunday in Addis Ababa. The negotiations, which started last week, raised hopes of a negotiated solution to end hostilities. The long-time rivals have broken off several rounds of negotiations over differences on where to draw a demilitarized buffer zone along the disputed border as a first step to end hostilities. (more)