“Only four months after the people of south Sudan overwhelmingly voted to secede from Khartoum's Islamic Republic of Sudan - and six weeks before the independence day of July 9 - a resumption of Sudan's civil war is threatened by north Sudan's military occupation of the disputed territory of Abyei and its calls to remove southern soldiers from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile. Sudan's ethnic and religious divisions coincide in all three borderland territories, with a Muslim nomadic population that looks to the north's capital of Khartoum while Christian and animist farmers are drawn to the south's Juba.

According to the security arrangements in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), both northern and southern soldiers are supposed to patrol the contested border territories. A week ago, southern military forces in the disputed Abyei region attacked UN forces escorting northern troops. Though the Juba government apologized, Khartoum made the attack the pretext for militarily occupying the territory, setting off large refugee flows out of Abyei.”
(John Campbell, CNN, June 1, 2011)

Please continue to pray for a peaceful transition towards the independence of South Sudan next month and for a good relationship to develop with the government in Khartoum with whom they will have to live amicably as their northern neighbor.