Nyok Galwak ran for his life when the shells and bullets from Sudan’s northern and southern armies started raining down on his tyre-repair stall in the contested oil town of Abyei in May last year.
Now, more than a year later, he is back at his shack at the centre of the battle-scarred settlement, claimed by both Sudan’s Muslim north and its mostly Christian south, bracing himself for more trouble.
Abyei’s citizens are preparing for the announcement of a divisive ruling on the boundaries of their district, expected on Wednesday from a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
A year ago, the competing claims over the area exploded in violence. On Wednesday, both Khartoum and the former southern rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), have agreed to accept the decision peacefully.
But that assurance has done little to ease the tension. ”The town seems calm, but the fear is under the surface,” said one UN worker who asked not to be named.
There is much more at stake than local politics and the demarcation of local boundaries.
Abyei lies at the heart of an oil-producing, pastoral district at the heart of Africa’s largest country, straddling its undefined north-south border.
The area’s status and boundaries were among the most sensitive issues left undecided in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war between the Khartoum government and southern rebels.
Many see the north-south rivalry that still burns over Abyei as a microcosm of the dangerous divisions that remain at the heart of the country four years after the historic accord, divisions that could still threaten the peace deal, the country’s oil industry and the region as a whole.
Wednesday’s ruling will not actually decide whether Abyei goes to north or south Sudan. That decision will be made by the people of Abyei themselves, in a referendum promised in January 2011.
Land ruling
The ruling will decide precisely what area of land is covered by Abyei. The south, banking on a yes vote in the referendum, says Abyei district’s northern border stretches far north of Abyei town, taking in oil fields and key grazing ground. North Sudan begs to differ.
”We don’t know what is going to happen after the decision. But this time I am going to stay here,” said Galwak, a member of Abyei’s Dinka Ngok ethnic group, part of south Sudan’s Dinka group. ”Abyei is ours. If there is going to be any trouble, it will be started by the Misseriya,” he said, referring to the northern Arab nomads who have also driven their cattle through the region for many years.
Galwak’s bravado hasn’t stopped him taking precautions. Like many others, he has only partly moved back to Abyei — his family still lives outside the town.
The cautious approach is apparent everywhere. Abyei is still a ghost of its former self — only about 3 000 people are now thought to live in the town and surrounding villages out of the 50 000 people who lived there before the May 2008 fighting.
Few have felt confident enough about the future to invest in the area. Some of the larger shell holes have been patched up, some roofs repaired, landmines cleared. But children still walk past the blackened circles of burnt-out huts while whole town blocks are empty and covered in rubbish.
”Nothing has changed in Abyei from last year. Nobody is ready to put up a hut, let alone a proper building,” said Arop Mayok, head of Abyei’s joint north-south administration.
Few people expect an immediate explosion of fighting on Wednesday. The current rainy season is never the best time for troop movements. At the very least, it will take a while for the new of the ruling to spread — most of the surrounding communities have little to no access to media.
Prominent northern and southern leaders have also promised to be on the ground on Wednesday to quell any trouble.
But still the fears of looming trouble persist.
Over the weekend, the UN said southern soldiers had been seen south of Abyei, breaching an agreement to pull out of the area after May 2008.
”There is no great sense of imminent danger,” said the UN’s Abyei chief, Mark Rutgers. ”But people remember May. They are apprehensive.” — Reuters