ReliefWeb

Introduction

In early September 2011, less than three months after war broke out between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-N) in Southern Kordofan, violence erupted in Blue Nile State. It began in the capital Damazin, and spread quickly throughout the state, drawing on similar grievances and tensions that had driven the previous civil war and that had been left unresolved by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

For decades, land distribution, access to natural resources and their exploitation and the underdevelopment of Blue Nile State have been contentious issues between local populations and the government in Khartoum. Large scale commercial agricultural schemes, backed by national legislation, have deprived local communities of their land and increased tensions between communities. At the same time, the government has allowed the resources of Blue Nile State – agricultural lands, minerals and the Blue Nile River – to consistently be exploited, but with very little benefit to the local population.

The CPA excluded Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan (known collectively as the Two Areas) from participation in the referendum that allowed South Sudan to eventually choose to separate from the North, even though both states had substantial SPLM constituencies and were important theatres during Sudan’s second civil war. Instead, a vaguely defined process – a “popular consultation” – was to reflect the expectations and views of the local populations on the CPA and the future of their state. This process made more progress in Blue Nile State than it did in Southern Kordofan, raising hopes for the creation of a more equitable society and sustainable stability. Renewed war, however, quashed these hopes.

Since the outbreak of the war, civilians in Blue Nile State have consistently been targeted during both aerial and ground offensives. The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) has repeatedly bombed SPLM-N held territories, often targeting civilian areas. These attacks have killed numerous civilians, have destroyed civilian property and have severely disrupted livelihoods and markets. As a result, some 172,000 people have left Blue Nile State for Ethiopia and South Sudan. Many of those who fled had already spent most of their lives displaced during Sudan’s second civil war.

The outbreak of the violence in Blue Nile State has intensified the old fault lines between the “indigenous” communities, historically associated with the SPLM/A, and other groups of more recent Arab and West African immigrants to the area, who have historically been associated with the government. Throughout the years, inter-communal tensions have been strongly related to local conflicts over grazing lands, migration routes and cattle. However, despite the popular political division between communities, members of all communities – Arabs, West Africans and indigenous groups – have joined both sides of the conflict, in the past as well as during the current war.

After five years of fighting in Blue Nile State and with little sign that the conflict might end any time soon, civilians are having to adapt to a context in which war has become the norm, and are facing incredibly hard and increasingly limited choices as a result. Inside the SPLM-N held areas, fighting and aerial bombardments are ongoing, and livelihoods opportunities are extremely limited. Meanwhile, the refugee camps in South Sudan are being drawn into the interconnected conflicts of Blue Nile State and South Sudan, and tensions between refugees and the host communities in Maban are making survival in the camps more and more challenging. It is in this context, while fighting continues to displace new populations from Blue Nile, that some refugees are choosing to go back into Sudan, either to government or to SPLM-N held areas. They do not necessarily go back to their homes, but rather to territories that are deemed less prone to aerial bombardments or where some livelihood opportunities exist.

Another aspect of the “normalisation” of the crisis was the establishment, in 2014, of a civilian SPLM-N administration, in an attempt to legitimise the movement’s control over the populations in the so-called “liberated areas”. SPLM-N government institutions are less developed in Blue Nile than they are in Southern Kordofan, where they were established earlier, and have limited capacity due to Blue Nile’s minimal infrastructure and the ongoing war.

The war in Blue Nile State is one of the most under-reported conflicts in the world, attracting very little attention outside Sudan and is, at best, mentioned as a second, less important, frontline in the war between the government and the SPLM-N in Sudan’s “New South” (the conflict zones in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile). As frequently happens in the Sudans and their numerous intertwined conflicts, complex local dynamics and histories get lost in broader, often oversimplified, narratives.

This report aims to bring such local dynamics, as understood by the people of Blue Nile State, to the fore, and explore the ways in which they are also influenced by national and regional issues. By doing this, the report aims to provide a background for the ongoing monitoring work that is carried out in Blue Nile State by the NHRMO and other organisations that are documenting the conflict, based on the perception that human rights violations and humanitarian crises must be understood in their broader political and historical context