December 21, 2012 (JUBA, South Sudan) – Expat staff members of the humanitarian aid organization World Concern have left the town of Wau, in South Sudan’s Western Bahr El Ghazal state, following recent outbreaks of violence between tribes in the area.

According to Reuters, at least 13 people died in clashes that broke out on Wednesday in the northern town of Wau. Up to 300 armed Dinka youth set fire to several buildings in Wau, according to the UN. Up to 5,000 civilians, mostly women and children, are seeking protection from the violence at the UN base in Wau. The government is imposing a 24-hour curfew in the town.

The home of a local World Concern staff member who works as a driver for the agency was burned on Wednesday, said Nick Archer, senior director of security and disaster response for World Concern. Several Kenyan staff members took shelter in the UN compound before leaving the area by vehicle under the escort of local Dinka staff. The Kenyan staff were then flown to Nairobi. Staff members who are Dinka have stayed in Wau, while those from other tribes have left for safer locations.

“The situation in Wau has been deteriorating for several days, with incidents of violence increasing in frequency and severity. Our latest information suggests that many people have fled the town for safer areas,” said Archer. “This is a tragic development for the people of Wau who are struggling to build a future from the ruins of decades of conflict, and we are concerned that the situation will get out of control, leading to further unnecessary loss of life and destruction of property.”

World Concern offices in Wau and Kuajok, South Sudan, were to be closed today through next week for the Christmas holiday. They will remain closed as we monitor the situation.

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World Concern is a Christian global relief and development organization. With our supporters, our faith compels us to extend life-saving help and opportunity to people facing the most profound human challenges of extreme poverty. At World Concern, the solutions we offer, the work we do, creates lasting, sustainable change. Lasting change that provides lasting hope. Our areas of expertise include disaster response, clean water, education, food security, child protection, microfinance and health.

December 21, 2012 (BOR) - Four people were killed and three others wounded in Jonglei State’s Twice East County following a cattle raid on Mission cattle camp in Kongoor Payam on Wednesday 19, Sudan Tribune has just learned.

Three of the dead were cattle raiders and one was a civilian cattle herder. Three men from South Sudan’s armed forces were wounded.

According to Twice East county commissioner, Dau Akoi Jurkuch, who spoke to Sudan Tribune from his base in Panyagoor on Thursday, the attack came as a result of an ambush laid by Murle armed men when cattle were almost returning to their pens at 6:00pm local time.

He said 1,533 cattle were taken by the raiders in the deadly attack, after which they hid in the west side of the County before waiting for night to cross to the east with the cattle back into Murle territory in Pibor County.

The Commissioner said Twice East County’s organized forces - consisting of police, wildlife and prison services - laid an ambush at Pading, where the raiders often cross back into Pibor with stolen cattle during the night.

“Our forces did a very job, they managed to return all the cattle”, said Dau.

Dau claimed that four cattle were killed in the crossfire during the fighting between the raiders and the organised forces.

The three soldiers who were wounded were shot by a Murle raider who had sustained an injury and was hiding. This raider "was later killed”, Dau added.

He said the raiders were in military uniforms, indicating that they could have belonged to David Yauyau’s militia, who are fighting the government in Pibor County.

He said the United Nation Mission in South Sudan delegates who toured Duk, and Ayod spent two days with him at Panyagoor, had witnessed the bodies of the raiders who were killed on the same day the team left for Bor.

“The team of UNMISS left Panyagoor the same day the fighting took place, they had seen the bodies and confirmed that they were really from [the] Murle”.

He said a similar attack occurred at Kiir Adhiok cattle camp where close to 2,225 heads of cattle were raided on Wednesday 19 December, but were returned by the County’s joint forces. No causalities were reported.

Dau called on government forces to remain alert and to beef-up security around the borders of his county to protect civilians as they are preparing to celebrate Christmas.

21 December 2012 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the shooting down today of a United Nations helicopter in South Sudan – killing all four crew members onboard – by the country’s armed forces and called for those responsible to be held to account, his spokesperson said today.

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns the shooting down today of a clearly marked UN helicopter by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) near Likuangole, in Jonglei state of South Sudan,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The Russian-crewed MI-8 helicopter, part of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), had been on a on a reconnaissance flight at around 10:00 a.m. local time over the settlement of Likuangole, in the eastern state of Jonglei.

The reconnaissance was related to efforts to identify suitable landing places to facilitate the protection of civilians work in the state. There were no passengers onboard.

The members of the Security Council also responded to the incident, which they “strongly deplored” in a press statement issued late Friday.

“They stressed that this accident constituted a grave violation of the Status of Forces Agreement of August 8, 2011 and jeopardized the UNMISS operations,” the statement added. “They strongly urged the UNMISS and the Government of South Sudan to conduct a swift and thorough investigation of the accident.”

UNMISS has begun an investigation to establish the circumstances around the incident. The Mission had immediately launched a search and recovery operation, which confirmed the death of all four crew members.

In communications between UNMISS and the SPLA, the Mission was told that the SPLA had shot at a helicopter in the Likuangole area on Friday.

“The Secretary-General calls on the Government of South Sudan to immediately carry out an investigation and bring to account those responsible for this act,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said.

“In light also of previous incidents,” he added, “the Secretary-General demands that the Government of South Sudan urgently puts in place reinforced measures within the SPLA to ensure that no such event may reoccur in the future.”

In their press statement, the members of the Security Council echoed the Secretary-General on these points, as well as in expressing “heartfelt condolences” to the families of the four crew members and to the Russian Federation. UNMISS expressed similar sentiments in an earlier statement.

South Sudan became independent from Sudan in July last year, six years after the signing of the peace agreement that ended decades of warfare between the north and the south. During the same month, the Security Council established UNMISS with the purpose of consolidating peace and security and to help establish conditions for development.

Highlights

• More people flee fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

• Human Rights Watch report says indiscriminate aerial bombardment in SPLM-N areas has killed and injured scores of civilians.

• More than 3,500 people flee their homes in parts of Darfur due to insecurity and intertribal violence.

12/24/2012 01:23 GMT

by Ian Timberlake

JABORONA, Sudan, Dec 24, 2012 (AFP) - From homes of mud brick or roughly built shelters, Sudan's displaced will gather on the sandy lot of St Bakhita's parish church on Monday for Christmas mass.

The metal benches beneath the church's sagging ceiling will be unable to hold all the worshippers: some are South Sudanese still waiting to go home, and many others are ethnic Nuba from war-torn South Kordofan state.

To make room, prayers will be held outside near a giant metal cross.

"It will be a very good celebration," a community worker said, despite little reason to rejoice in the Jaborona settlement, which grew out of the desert near Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman during Sudan's 1983-2005 civil war.

"We can survive and we can smile... but there is a lot of tears in our hearts," one church leader said of the South Sudanese remaining in Islamist-run Sudan, without regular jobs or homes of their own as their cash evaporates.

"They want to go back," he said.

Most of the Southerners who lived in Jaborona left earlier, but about 1,000 are still encamped there in tent-like shelters awaiting transport south, said the community worker.

Similar "departure points" all over the Khartoum area hold what local leaders estimate are 40,000 South Sudanese.

The civil war drove millions to the north. After South Sudan separated in July 2011, southerners there were given a deadline of April to formalise their status in the north or leave.

Juba's embassy says that, at last count, there were 171,000 South Sudanese still in the Khartoum area.

Sudan and South Sudan have not come up with a detailed plan for returning the South Sudanese, and disagreements have stalled implementation of key deals signed in September on security and economic issues.

These included a pact on the right of each country's nationals to live and move freely in the other country.

There have been small-scale organised returns this year, including one last week by the two governments and the Africa Inland Church which moved more than 900 people by road to South Sudan, said Filiz Demir, of the International Organisation for Migration.

-- Priority is 'how to survive' --

On Monday, Christmas Eve, the IOM will resume flights of sick, elderly and other "extremely vulnerable" South Sudanese, Demir said. The airlift from Khartoum to Aweil, South Sudan, will continue until Thursday.

In Arabic, "Jaborona" means taken by force. The settlement developed when people displaced by the civil war in the Nuba mountains and south Sudan were moved there by the government.

At its peak it held about 30,000 Southerners but now only about 1,000 remain, while others stay with relatives and return to Jaborona when they hear of transport South, the community worker said.

"I think the main problem at the moment is the living conditions of the people," he said, asking for anonymity. "Many young people are just drinking, living a reckless life, don't go to school."

South Sudanese have been classed as foreigners in Sudan since April, restricting their access to employment and services.

They lost their jobs and sold their homes in expectation of leaving, the community worker said, adding that some women brew and sell alcohol to scrape out a living.

"I'm sure their priority is not how to celebrate Christmas but how to survive and how to transport themselves home," said Kau Nak, deputy head of South Sudan's embassy in Khartoum.

An estimated 100,000 Nuba live slightly better-off in Jaborona's rough mud-brick houses spread across a vast expanse of sand.

One Nuba, who arrived in Jaborona years ago during the civil war, said some Nuba women "work for Arabs," while the men rely on casual jobs.

For the poverty-stricken Nuba and South Sudanese of Jaborona, there will be no elaborate gifts or Christmas trees.

"The people just prepare their hearts," the community worker said.

it/srm/pvh

© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

By Kristin Palitza

DAR ES SALAAM, Dec 22 2012 (IPS) - A nurse working in a remote clinic in Mueda, a small town in northern Mozambique’s Makonde Plateau, receives a shipment of vaccines from the national health department. Using special software on her mobile phone, she sends out a mass text message to alert mothers in the area about the availability of immunisations.

She also uses the phone to schedule appointments, access patient records and order new vaccines when stock runs low.

It is – for now – a theoretical scenario on how mobile technology can help improve childhood immunisation in sub-Saharan Africa. But it will soon become a reality in Mozambique, a country the size of Turkey, where 135 out of 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday.

The southern African nation’s Department of Health has teamed up with the GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership for immunisation, to launch a pilot project in about 100 clinics in early 2013 where health workers will test the effectiveness and cost benefits of using mobile phones to communicate with patients.

The yearlong three-million-dollar pilot project has been co-financed by British telecommunications giant Vodafone and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. At the end of the trial, vaccination levels in Mozambique should improve by five to 10 percent, the donors say.

“One thousand new mobile broadband connections are made every minute in the developing world, which means we have a tremendous opportunity to transform lives in an easily accessible way,” explains U.K. Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening.

Africa is the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market and the second largest after Asia, according to Groupe Speciale Mobile Association, a global industry body. There are about 700 million mobile connections on the continent and the number of mobile phone users increased by nearly 20 percent every year over the last five years.

Although not every mother in the poor nation of Mozambique, which according to United Nations statistics had a meagre gross national income per capita of 382 dollars in 2009, has a mobile phone, at least one family member or a neighbour usually does.

As part of the pilot project caregivers will be registered on a health ministry database and will be educated and alerted by text message about the availability of vaccines and their importance. They can reply via SMS to schedule clinic appointments and will receive notifications and reminders about their children’s past and future vaccinations to make sure each child receives a full immunisation schedule.

Mozambique’s health workers will receive smartphones with software to access records and schedule appointments and help clinics in remote locations monitor stocks to make sure vaccines are available when mothers arrive with their children.

“Mobile technology will help us identify children who until now have been missed and make sure they get a full set of vaccinations,” GAVI CEO Seth Berkley tells IPS. The ability to notify and remind mothers of vaccination appointments is expected to make a big dent in high drop-off rates, where a child receives only one out of two or three necessary injections to make a vaccine effective, he says.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), immunisation is the most cost-effective public health intervention after the provision of clean water. More than a million children die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases, while every fifth child in Africa remains unimmunised, the organisation says.

A number of other African nations have started to use mobile technology in some areas of public health care, although the Mozambican pilot project will be the most comprehensive when it comes to immunisation and will use software specifically developed for national conditions and needs.

Tanzania, for example, uses mobile stock management technology to track malaria treatments in 5,000 clinics across the country. In South Africa, 1,800 remote community health workers use mobile phones to access and update patient records. And when Ghana rolled out rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines this April, a major local religious organisation helped notify mothers about the new immunisations by arranging for 1.5 million SMS messages to be sent out.

South Sudan, supported by the WHO, began to manage vaccine stocks through mobile technology in mid-2012 in its central and state stores, while Rwanda’s health ministry uses mobile phones to monitor maternal and child mortality.

“The cell phone has been revolutionising (African) healthcare more than any other technology,” Richard Sezibera, Rwanda’s former minister of health and current secretary-general of the East African Community, tells IPS.

Providing health workers with mobile devices “has really changed life in Rwanda,” he adds. The strategy has helped bring down Rwanda’s under-five mortality rate from 163 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 56 per 1,000 live births in 2011, according to U.N. Children’s Fund figures.

Sezibera also believes that using mobile technology can help health departments to better manage their usually meagre budgets. Since most African nations only spend an average of five percent of GDP on health, “how we finance health is becoming increasingly important,” he says. “Using mobile technology can help reduce supply chain and transaction costs.”

If Mozambique’s pilot project is successful, it will be expanded to 1,500 clinics across the country. If that works well, GAVI hopes to implement it in many other low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Berkley says.

Civil society organisations, which have been working to improve child health in those countries for years, believe the approach could make a huge difference to children’s lives.

“We know the children in remote areas are missing out (on being vaccinated), with 22 million around the world being left behind,” says Justin Forsyth, CEO of the international charity Save the Children. That is every fifth child. “Mobile technology, in the hands of front line health workers, could help close the gap.”

12/24/2012 14:34 GMT

KHARTOUM, Dec 24, 2012 (AFP) - An airlift from Khartoum of sick, elderly and other "extremely vulnerable" South Sudanese, suspended after a November plane crash, re-started on Christmas Eve Monday, the International Organisation for Migration said.

"We are resuming the flights," and 101 passengers took off from the Sudanese capital in two trips Monday to Aweil in the South's Northern Bahr El Ghazal state, said Filiz Demir, an IOM official.

The flights will continue until Thursday moving around 300 people to Aweil and Wau, she said, providing Christian Southerners with a well-timed seasonal gift.

The vulnerable group are among roughly 40,000 Southerners encamped around the Sudanese capital awaiting transport to the South, which became independent in July last year.

Community workers say those in the camps have lost their regular jobs and sold their homes.

IOM suspended the airlift in mid-November when its only chartered plane crashed on landing at the Aweil airstrip. Miraculously, none of the passengers was hurt.

More than 1,000 extremely vulnerable South Sudanese had been moved in November before the accident.

South Sudan's embassy says that, at last count, there were 171,000 South Sudanese still in the Khartoum area after an April deadline for them to formalise their status or leave the country.

Sudan and South Sudan have not come up with a detailed plan for returning the South Sudanese, and disagreements have stalled implementation of key deals signed in September on security and economic issues.

Millions of Southerners fled to the north during a 22-year civil war which ended in a 2005 peace deal that paved the way for South Sudan's independence following a referendum.

it/jds

23 December 2012 - Relative calm has returned to the Western Bahr El-Ghazal state capital of Wau following violence that broke out in various neighbourhoods on 19 December.

Shops and commercial establishments opened yesterday as usual, amid a heavy presence of Sudan People’s Liberation Army troops and South Sudan National Police Service officers throughout the city.

Several thousand civilians, mainly women and children, who had sought refuge in the UNMISS compound at the height of the violence, have now returned to their homes.

But an overnight curfew the state government imposed after disturbances broke out remains in place and UNMISS armored personnel carriers continue to secure the local airport.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir is expected to visit Wau on 24 December. The city’s disturbances left an unconfirmed number of people dead, scores injured and dozens of properties destroyed.

By Stephen Gray and Josefine Roos

Abstract

South Sudan has experienced deadly conflict for much of the last five decades. While most attention has focused on South Sudan’s civil war with the now Republic of Sudan to the north, in reality, interrelated conflicts persist in multiple layers of society. Paradoxically, the termination of the war of nationhood activated ‘local conflicts’, which have led to the killing of thousands of people since peace was brokered with the north in 2005. This paper presents an assessment of a ‘typical local conflict’ between two Dinka clans, based on field research in Jonglei State, using a systemic approach to conflict assessment adapted from dynamical systems theory. This approach not only captures the multiple sources and complex temporal dynamics of the conflict, but can also help identify patterns that are central to the conflict that are unrecognisable by other means (Coleman et al. 2007, 2011). The analysis reveals that typical explanations for local violence in post-civil war contexts such as resource and political competition and insecurity are an over-simplification in this context. These factors undoubtedly influence the conflict, but can be better understood as elements of a dynamical system where the probability of violence is strongly influenced by the clans’ competing desire to maximise group pride.

The conflict has resisted transformation because traditional ‘pride-sensitive’ conflict mechanisms have become ineffective, while most interventions by state institutions have exacerbated the conflict. These findings reveal an emotional dimension to conflict that might be overlooked in conventional approaches to conflict assessment and peacebuilding, although the case study is not to be generalised to all local conflict in South Sudan.

Hannah McNeish

ABYEI — In the disputed region of Abyei that straddles the largely undefined border of Sudan and South Sudan, residents are trickling back to rebuild their lives, following a May 2011 invasion by northern troops that drove more than 100,000 people to the South. A fragile peace remains in this semi-ghost town while the two sides struggle for control at the negotiating table, but residents fear violence could return in the coming months.

A small roadside shelter in front of an abandoned school shows a rare sign of life in Abyei town, as tea seller Achuil Deng waits patiently for the handful of passersby whose purchases enable her to eke out a living.

She once ran a bustling restaurant behind the schoolhouse, where vines creep through the windows and crawl where the roof once was.

“That time it was a very big and good building, so many children were inside and the roof were there and the grounds were so clean, now it is nothing like that. Now everything here is destroyed,” said Deng.

​​Northern troops, tanks and bomber planes descended on Abyei in May 2011, leaving most of the area's buildings destroyed and all the metal looted.

Small dark circles are still visible where mud-and-straw huts once stood in wastelands now populated by scampering monkeys and ambling storks.

Entire villages and surrounding crop fields were razed. Stolen property included prized cattle, which represent a family’s wealth, future dowry and property.

“Now we don’t have a place to stay and our tukul was already burnt, and we are not comfortable with the issue of security. Because when you have seen the situation before and now and how quickly things can change, people are expecting all the time insecurity,” said Deng.

The United Nations says the 2011 conflict caused more than 120,000 people from the mainly ethnic Dinka Ngok group to flee south.

​​Only a fraction have returned, and until Sudan and South Sudan can agree on who this area belongs to, it will remain a tinderbox.

Abyei was supposed to have a referendum at the same time as South Sudan in January 2011. After decades of civil war with Khartoum, Southerners voted overwhelmingly to split six months later.

Former Abyei resident Longo Mangom says it was the prospect of a vote that prompted the 2011 crisis. Mangom says Sudan knew the largely Dinka population, ethnically tied to the South, would vote to split.

After years of failed negotiations, a December 5 deadline imposed by African Union mediators passed with Khartoum rejecting a proposal.

If there is no agreement soon, the AU says that Abyei will have to have a referendum in October next year - a vote that Mangom and others fear could be deadly rather than democratic.

“The cause of attack as I put it that two parties did not agree of how they can have the referendum of Abyei as they put it in the protocol," said Mangom. "Now there is other proposal from African union to have a referendum in October ’13. But my feeling is that if the two parties do not agree who is going to vote, I fear that we will face another conflict between the two parties."

Achuil Akol Miyan, acting chief of the Abyei Administration in Agok, says that Arab nomads from the Misseriya tribe have been crossing to southern pastures via Abyei for more than 250 years.

​​But now, as the cattle export trade from Sudan is rising, along with tensions over the sharing of oil revenue with South Sudan, he claims Sudan has politicized the situation. He estimates that 3 million cows have been stolen in recent years.

“The Islamist government of Omar al Bashir is interested in the Dinka Ngok land," said Miyan. "They don’t want this land to go to the South with the oil. And they are now telling Misseriya to take the land, saying that they will end up with the land for grazing and the government will take the oil for Sudan.”

Sudan's foreign minister has already warned that if the AU passes the Abyei decision on to the U.N. Security Council, there will be violence.

Miyan says that a Misseriya chief has also gone on state TV to broadcast threats of more violence if there is a referendum.

He is more worried about fighting between communities in the next few months, when the Misseriya typically cross. A lack of rainfall this year has led to many watering points drying up, and there are fears that thre may not be enough for even the remaining Dinka Ngok cattle.

Restaurant owner Nyan Agwok Achol says she sees only a very few customers a day from the U.N. peacekeeping force for Abyei, which is stationed nearby.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen later on and so we are just in limbo - we don’t know whether it will be secure of if there will be fighting,” said Achol.

While they wait for an identity and a country, the few residents for now are trying to rebuild their existence, but with the ever present knowledge that soon they couldonce more be running for their lives.

Highlights

• Border monitoring in El Fuj

• Biometric exercise concludes in Yida; baseline population data confirmed

• UNHCR awaits approval for new sites for refugees in Unity State

• Influx of Congolese new arrivals in South Sudan

21 December 2012 - UN Police (UNPOL) advisors are supporting the South Sudan National Police Service (SSNPS) with a plan to combat crime in Juba during the upcoming holiday season.

In an interview with Radio Miraya, UNMISS Police Commissioner Fred Yiga said that over 2,000 SSNPS officers would be deployed throughout the South Sudanese capital, which would be divided into five zones headed by SSNPS major generals.

Police personnel in civilian clothes would be assigned to improve security in public places like churches and restaurants, said Mr. Yiga. UNPOL advisors would work closely with uniformed traffic police to promote safe driving practices.

“This is a time when everyone must be happy, everyone must feel good,” said the mission’s top police official.

Emphasizing that the primary responsibility for providing security rested with the SSNPS, Mr. Yiga said UNPOL advisors played a supporting role during their tours of duty in the country.

“We are here to support and advise for the development of police services in South Sudan,” he said.

UNPOL is carrying out capacity-building courses for over 400 senior and middle-level SSNPS officers. It also helped South Sudanese authorities establish a diplomatic protection unit to bolster security for foreign diplomats assigned to Juba.

These activities are carried out under the terms of a memorandum of understanding signed by UNMISS and the Ministry of Interior last August for transformation of the SSNPS.

12/26/2012 08:57 GMT

KHARTOUM, Dec 26, 2012 (AFP) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn arrived in Khartoum on Wednesday to bolster peace efforts between Sudan and South Sudan, official media said.

"The Ethiopian prime minister's visit comes in the context of the Ethiopian endeavours to push ahead the peace process between Sudan and South Sudan," Khartoum's presidential press secretary Emad Sayed Ahmed told the SUNA news agency.

Desalegn will travel to South Sudan on Thursday, SUNA reported.

Khartoum and Juba have failed to implement crucial security and economic agreements they signed in September and hailed as ending conflict.

The deals, reached after African Union-led talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, called for a jointly-monitored demilitarised buffer zone and a resumption of South Sudanese oil exports through northern pipelines.

They also allowed for a reopening of border points for general trade, after the two countries fought a war along their undemarcated frontier in March and April.

Khartoum accuses South Sudan of supporting an insurgency in Sudan's border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, which has been a major obstacle to implementing the agreements.

The South, in turn, says Sudan backs rebels on southern territory.

But after the latest round of talks in Addis Ababa this month, African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki said "a major step forward" on security had been taken.

Another meeting is planned for January 13.

Separately, Sudan and South Sudan still need to reach a deal on the final status of the flashpoint Abyei region, as well as on other disputed points along the frontier.

The South separated in July 2011 under a peace agreement that ended a 1983-2005 civil war.

it/bpz

Fresh fighting at the border between Sudanese forces and the South Sudanese army (SPLA) has killed an unconfirmed number of people today, 26 December. Casualty reports vary between 8 and 28 people dead in the area of Warguet, also known to Arab tribes as Samaha. At least 50 people of the Rizeigat tribe originating from East Darfur were wounded.

The area along the river Bahr al Arab, also known as the River Kiir, is currently under control of the South Sudan army (SPLA) claiming the area is part of Northern Bahr al Ghazal of South Sudan, while Sudan claims it belongs to the state of East Darfur in Sudan.

The Rizeigat tribe inhabiting the area is asking the international community to prevent a full-scale war. A leader of the Rizeigat shura council, Mohamed Isa Aleu, confirmed he counted 4 dead and tens of people wounded.

He also confirmed a huge military build-up by the Sudan Armed Forces. 'The SPLA has been shelling us from a distance of around 20 kilometers. We have been asking the government of Khartoum to solve the issue in a political way. For us, the river Bahr al Arab is the only source for drinking water for the cattle. The situation becomes a matter of life and dead for us in the coming months”.

Sources among the villagers in the area of Samaha said the ground attacks were severe. An eyewitness told Radio Dabanga: “At least 25 people are confirmed dead. Ten people have been injured, additionally eight people sustained severe injuries. We are afraid some might lose their limbs. We hope an airplane will transfer the people to a hospital in Khartoum”.

A spokesman of the Rizeigat tribe that inhabited the Samaha area said that the entire population asks for a quick intervention of the international community to prevent a full-scale war between Sudan and South Sudan. “We hope that the African Union and the United Nations will act fast otherwise we might be caught in the middle of another war”.

SPLA blames SAF

The spokesman of the SPLA of South Sudan blamed the Khartoum government for starting the hostilities in the border area. He said: “Today 26 December the Sudan Armed Forces launched a ground attack on the SPLM base in Warguet. The ground attack was supported by air bombardments carried out concurrently from 8 o’clock up top twelve o’clock. The Antonov dropped 11 bombs in the morning and dropped 14 bombs at around twelve noon time.”

According to the SPLA the southern army defeated the SAF of Khartoum and let them move back beyond Meiram (village in South Kordofan), but it could not prevent that two women and one child was killed. The SPLA claims that the area belongs to the South according to the recent agreement between SAF and SPLA in Addis Ababa.

He added: “The intention of this aggression is unknown, but the SPLA has been monitoring the other side of the border and the River Kiir before this unjustified attack took place today. Khartoum's forces have been trying to occupy this area of Warguet. But the SPLA will continue to frustrate them."

"We expect this is not the last attack on Warguet since it is attack number three. The SPLA is making precaution for another attack that Khartoum may plan,” Aguer told Radio Dabanga.

Previous escalations

In May 2012 the situation in Warguet became also tense after the SLPA accused the SAF for bombing its territory. Although independent verification in the area was not possible, only fighting North of the river was confirmed by independent sources. The area is inaccessible for civilians. Church visitors authored a report on the situation in Warguet in December 2011. They already noticed that Warguet and other areas on the south bank of the Bahr El Arab/Kiir River are highly militarized.

Warguet is described as a 'military barrack' of the 3rd Division of South Sudan's army.

Bishop Abraham Yel Nhial led the visit together with military chaplains in order to provide spiritual encouragement to soldiers. He traveled in an army convoy to reach Warguet 'because the whole area was not secure,' according to the report by the Episcopal Diocese of Aweil.

"This place is a very dangerous and fearful place even those who have heavy machines hardly come here... it is a dangerous place only for soldiers," said Lt. Col. Gabriel Door, a commander at Warguet, as quoted in the diocesan report.

According to a detailed map authored by geographers at the University of Bern Centre for Development and Environment Geoprocessing Unit, who for years have mapped Sudan and South Sudan, the village 'War Guit' lies just about 5 kilometers south of the Bahr El Arab/Kiir River along the Wau-Babanusa railway.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Violence in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal results in temporary displacement of 5,000 civilians in UN mission

• Number of new arrivals from Democratic Republic of Congo decreases significantly

• Aid agencies respond to 4,000 displaced people in Jaac, Northern Bahr el Ghazal State

HIGHLIGHTS

• Fighting in Shangil Tobaya and Tawila localities in North Darfur displaces 1,200 people, according to UNAMID.

• Some 4,500 people have returned to their homes in South Kordofan, according to media reports.

• Malaria on the decline in Sudan, according to the WHO

YIDA, South Sudan, Dec 27 (UNHCR) – Technology is changing all spheres of life, including humanitarian interventions. In South Sudan, UNHCR is using satellite imagery, interactive mapping, digital fingerprinting and text messaging to strengthen refugee protection, help the most vulnerable and reach out to refugees in urban areas.

UNHCR is conducting the first biometric registration exercise in South Sudan using digital fingerprinting technology. The nearly 200,000 refugees had been registered in standard databases, but biometrics will help to identify refugees more quickly so they can receive better assistance.

In Yida refugee settlement, the largest in South Sudan with more than 65,000 refugees, biometrics is a critical way for UNHCR to target services, to prevent multiple registrations and make planning and delivery more efficient.

As Yida is very close to the border, it is not unusual for refugees to risk their lives by returning home to escort other family members to safety. The movements make maintaining accurate population figures for Yida a challenge for UNHCR.

Precise registration also facilitates individual follow-up for the most vulnerable refugees, like Housna Ali Kuku#, a single mother of four children who arrived in Yida in late July. An information campaign in Yida told Housna exactly when to bring her children to the UNHCR registration center.

"I'm recovering from a respiratory tract infection and even though I am sick and tired I know it's important for my children and I to come to UNHCR to be counted," she told UNHCR. Housna's children are not aware of UNHCR's hi-tech endeavours. One by one they are being registered and watch with fascination as the registration clerk rolls their index fingers to capture each child's unique print on the machine's red light sensor screen.

UNHCR is simultaneously using the process to update information on special needs such as female-headed households, pregnant or lactating women, or malnourished children. In this way protection staff can quickly identify and meet the needs of the most vulnerable in a camp made up of more than 70 percent women and children.

The team is also recording a new piece of data: the refugees' addresses. UNHCR has recently been working with its NGO partner ACTED to take GPS coordinates to map Yida settlement. Each structure or tent is being entered into the map.

Maps and addresses are linked to UNHCR's database, providing a wealth of information through interactive technology. These newly designed interactive maps enable humanitarian workers to find out much more about the camp population than the location of each shelter as the data base links up geographic and demographic data down to household level.

"Now, mapping a problem is just a mouse click away," says Emilie Poisson, ACTED Country Director for South Sudan.

"Let me give you an example: previously, if the clinic noted an increase in patients with a certain disease all we had were the absolute figures Now, we can detect the causes by analyzing the map. Does the disease spread in a certain community, around a specific latrine, in families with school children? Such information helps us to intervene faster and in a more targeted way," says Poisson.

With the help of interactive maps, services for the most vulnerable refugees can be improved. Where are the older and sick people located? How far do they have to go to get water, reach a clinic or carry food from delivery points? Have relief items been distributed to all households? Are children from certain camp areas under-represented in camp schools?

A completely different set of problems presented itself in Juba, where over 6,000 refugees are scattered across the sprawling capital. They need protection and support, but the largest challenge for UNHCR has been communication. Again, technology provided a solution.

UNHCR established contacts with community leaders, who in turn were trying to reach their communities by phone or personal visits. The method is costly and time consuming for refugee leaders and does not give UNHCR direct access to beneficiaries. During a recent registration exercise it was noted that practically all refugees had either a mobile phone or access to a mobile phone through a person nearby.

UNHCR protection and IT officers engaged with a mobile phone provider who now is installing a text-messaging platform for UNHCR. The refugees' phone numbers have been entered in the database and structured by geographic areas. UNHCR can now reach out to all or to certain groups of refugees in multiple languages at the same time.

"The system will be fully functional in a matter of days," says UNHCR community services officer Alfonso Massa. "This will even allow us to organize democratic community leader elections." UNHCR will send step-by-step instructions in Arabic and English to all refugees and guide them through the process – from the selection of candidates all the way to forming a leadership committee."

By Melita H. Sunjic in Juba and Kathryn Mahoney in Yida

12/27/2012 19:33 GMT

by Ian Timberlake

KHARTOUM, Dec 27, 2012 (AFP) - "Armed groups" from South Sudan clashed with Arab tribesmen in Samaha, a flashpoint border region disputed by Khartoum and Juba, the Sudanese military said on Thursday.

The fighting occurred two days ago, army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad told AFP.

"We hear that there were some groups from South Sudan, armed groups... and they attacked the nomads there, the Rezeigat," he said. "The fighting was not between the Sudanese army and the South Sudanese army."

He said he had no information on casualties and added: "We are trying to find a political solution for this problem."

In comments to the official SUNA news agency Saad said land mines had been planted by South Sudanese forces in the Samaha area, leading people there "to enter into clashes with the armed groups affiliated to the South Sudan army."

The Samaha region is one of five areas disputed by Khartoum and the South's government in Juba.

In November, Sudan's army said it attacked an area several kilometres (miles) north of Samaha where Darfur rebels had set up a compound, but South Sudan said bombs landed on its territory, killing civilians.

Sudan considers the area, around the Bahr al-Arab River, to be part of its East Darfur state.

This week's clash came as Sudan and South Sudan try to implement stalled economic and security deals -- including a demilitarised border buffer zone -- which they hailed in September as ending conflict after they fought along their undemarcated border in March and April.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on Wednesday evening "discussed means of implementing the agreements which were signed in Addis Ababa between Sudan and South Sudan... as well as removing the impediments", SUNA reported.

It added that Bashir affirmed his readiness to meet South Sudan's President Salva Kiir "in any time and place" to speed up the deals reached in the Ethiopian capital after African Union mediation.

Desalegn was heading on Thursday to South Sudan after his one-day stop in Khartoum, SUNA said.

Along with the buffer zone, the September pacts allowed for a resumption of South Sudanese oil exports through northern pipelines. They also said border points would be reopened for general trade.

Khartoum accuses South Sudan of supporting rebels operating in Sudan, which has been a major obstacle to implementing the agreements.

The South, in turn, says Sudan backs insurgents on southern territory.

Separately, Sudan and South Sudan still need to reach a deal on the final status of the Abyei region, as well as on Samaha and other disputed points along the frontier.

South Sudan separated in July 2011 under a peace agreement that ended a 1983-2005 civil war.

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The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North in the Nuba Moutains reports the killing of four people in Adar village in Boram County, the Nuba Mountains, as a result of air strikes by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). The SPLM-N spokesperson told Radio Dabanga that the SAF are bombing areas under control of the movement in South Kordofan on a daily base.

SPLM-North spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi says that on Wednesday 26 December around 18:30 the Sudan army dropped 9 bombs killing Kuku Tia Rahal (70 years old), Aisha Tutu Talodi (45 years), Rehab Adam Alful (8 years), Najah Adam Alful (4 years).