O God, steadfast in the midst of persecution, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: As the martyrs of the Sudan refused to abandon Christ even in the face of torture and death, and so by their sacrifice brought forth a plenteous harvest, may we, too, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Spirituality/Prayer • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

In 2004 Sandra and I flew to the northernmost part of Uganda to visit a couple of theological seminaries in the city of Arua. The Ugandan seminary was relatively well appointed. Its faculty joyful. Its students adequately fed and eager to learn. The Sudanese seminary, across town, was a study in contrasts. Bare buildings, dirt floors, underfed students, listless faculty were all testimony to the suffering of Sudanese people who had sought refuge across the Uganda border to save their lives.

Today South Sudan is its own country, thanks to the accord in 2011, by which 8 million Sudanese – mostly African and Christian (as opposed to northern Sudanese who are Arab and Muslim) – ceded from Sudan. People like the seminarians we saw are now moving back home and rebuilding the decimated southern part of the country. When we lived in Pittsburgh we got to know many of the so-called “Lost Boys” who had come to America back in the 1980’s and ‘90’s as refugees. Beautiful young men, many of them had seen the most brutal atrocities the human mind can imagine.

These atrocities are paraded across the wide-screen in a new movie from Relativity Media called Machine Gun Preacher. Starring Gerard Butler as Sam Childers and Michelle Monagan as his longsuffering wife Lynn, the movie tells the true story of one man’s effort to help the suffering children of Sudan....

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A panel of African civil society leaders, including Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail, were joined today by the former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Dr. Mukesh Kapila, in urging African political leaders to use the upcoming African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa to end the humanitarian suffering in Sudan's Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

The panel identified the January 25 Heads of State meeting on Sudan as a key test of the AU's "credibility" and urged African leaders to recognise the importance of addressing the conflict in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile for wider regional security.

Having just returned from a visit to the region, Dr Kapila called for an independent commission of enquiry into the conflict amongst warnings of "ethnic cleansing".

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A coalition of leading human rights activists and scholars has asked that Congress press the Obama administration to end the growing humanitarian crisis in the largely Christian areas of southern Sudan, saying that the administration’s response to the crisis has been non-existent.

U.S. policy toward the continuing human tragedy in Sudan is “in the worst place it’s ever been,” said Mark C. Hackett, CEO and executive director of Memphis-based Operation Broken Silence. “It’s extremely disappointing.”

Hackett and other activists — at a Jan. 11 forum organized by the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. — said that they had spent Jan. 10-11 on Capitol Hill calling for the United States to intervene to stop the systematic attacks of villagers in the Nuba Mountains of southern Sudan by the forces of President Omar al-Bashir.

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Barnabas Fund has transported over 2,300 Christians from Sudan since the start of its rescue mission four months ago.

The Christians are being evacuated because of increasing hostility in the majority-Muslim country.

After South Sudan gained independence in 2011, the largely Christian Southerners living in Sudan lost their citizenship rights and were ordered to leave.

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Watch the whole video (just under 7 1/2 minutes).

To find Mundri on a map of South Sudan, go here. Then find Uganda and the part of South Sudan that borders Uganda. About in the middle and slight up to the left from the border you will see the major city of Juba. Now head northwest (follow yellowish line) to the next city on the map which is Mundri (Town)

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Iranian warships have arrived in Port Sudan in an apparent show of support for the government in Khartoum, one week after it accused Israel of bombing an arms factory in the Sudanese capital.

Iran's state news agency confirmed yesterday that two vessels, a destroyer and a helicopter carrier have docked in Sudan's main port on the Red Sea and their commanders will be meeting Sudanese officials.

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Yida, the largest refugee camp in South Sudan, stretches for miles. It is home to more than 64,000 of the 206,000 refugees from the Republic of Sudan who have fled the bombing and violent attacks against civilians by the Khartoum government since June 2011. Yida camp itself was bombed Nov. 10, 2011, killing 12 refugees.

Only 20 kilometers from the volatile border between Sudan and South Sudan, Yida camp sees a constant stream of nearly 200 new refugees a day, coming from the Nuba Mountains region (South Kordofan State) in Sudan. Rebel groups in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile states have united against the Khartoum government’s army, Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which indiscriminately attacks rebels and civilians in those areas.

“They kill everybody, Christians and Muslims. They burn houses, churches, and schools. They kill people. They drop bombs. Just two days ago soldiers came to my area [in the Nuba Mountains] and killed one person and burned houses,” said the Rev. Ameka Yousif, a pastor who has lived in Yida camp since February. “[In the Nuba Mountains] when people see the planes, they run and hide. Bombing is happening almost every day.”

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Speaking after a meeting with the Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail, Bishop of Kadugli in the Nuba Mountains, the Archbishop urged attention to be given to the plight of the affected population of these areas, both Muslim and Christian alike.

“Food and basic essentials are urgently needed by the displaced population. The international community needs to wake up to the gravity of the situation. All parties need to work together to find practical ways to get help to those most in need.”

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After decades of conflict and displacement, returnees from Sudan to South Sudan are facing huge difficulties to restart their lives. According to the United Nation Office for the Organisation of Humanitarian Affairs, around 123.000 people have returned this year (Humanitarian Bulletin 3 – 9 September).

Despite the raising of hopes for going back home, the situation for people arriving is very complicated. The relief and development coordinator of the Diocese of Rejaf, Episcopal Church of Sudan, Mr Bullen Pitya, explains how returnees could not bring along their things, as they were flown from Sudan to Juba with minimum personal belongings.

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Yet again the grim title of “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis” goes to Sudan – this time for developments in the border regions between Sudan and the newly independent country of South Sudan. The crisis is exploding as the rainy season descends fully upon this area, and humanitarian resources are overwhelmed.

Khartoum’s denial of all humanitarian access to rebel-controlled areas within its border, along with a relentless campaign of aerial bombardment, is generating a continuous flow of tens of thousands of refugees – up to 4,000 per day according to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). But even that June figure is being quickly overtaken, according to reports.

And no wonder. The regime faces no significant international condemnation or consequences for its role in creating this crisis. That must change.

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South Sudan said Saturday it was cancelling planned face-to-face peace talks with Sudan after accusing Khartoum of launching a new air raid on its territory.

“We were left with no choice but to suspend our direct bilateral talks with Sudan,” the spokesman for Juba’s delegation at the talks in Addis Ababa, Atif Kiir, said. “You cannot sit with them to negotiate when they are bombing our territory,” he added. “The only negotiations that will happen now will happen through the panel,” he said, referring to an African Union mediation panel conducting the talks in the Ethiopian capital.

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"Peace is the only option which can allow the flourishing of South Sudan and its neighbour Sudan," the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned. Speaking on the first anniversary of the independence of South Sudan, the Archbishop has called for urgent humanitarian assistance in conflict areas and renewed efforts to resolve outstanding differences between the two countries....

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In the Central African Republic, churches are aiding victims of the violence associated with Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and his rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"Since we are humanitarian and social [organizations] as churches, we are paying great attention to the suffering and needs of these people," the Rev. Andre Golike, President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Central African Republic told ENInews in a telephone interview on June 7.

Kony was thrust into the limelight by the film Kony 2012, made by a U.S. nonprofit called Invisible Children Inc., which said it sought to make him "famous" to influence his capture. The film has been viewed more than 90 million times on http://www.youtube.com.

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Nimuli struggled to rise from a rope bed to greet pastor James Mading Bui at an Episcopal church where she lives in a suburb of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, waiting to travel back home to the newly independent south.

Nimuli is one of as many as 700,000 South Sudanese who have become regarded as dark-skinned, often Christian outsiders in mainly Arabic Sudan since the oil-rich south seceded in July. Verbally abused as “insects” by some Sudanese on the streets, they have no citizenship or residential rights and no idea when they are going to be able to travel to South Sudan.

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Security agents in Sudan's South Darfur state have closed the offices of the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) and relief group Sudan Aid in the state's capital, Nyala.

Agents from the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) arrived at the organizations' compound in Nyala, a city of some 550,000 people, at 8 a.m. on April 22. They ordered SCC staff members to hand over keys to the offices and vehicles and, without explanation, ordered them to leave immediately, an SCC staff worker told Compass Direct News by phone.

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Bishops in South Sudan have said that they are ready to do “all in their power” to put an end to the conflict with Sudan.

Episcopal and Roman Catholic bishops held a meeting from 9 to 11 May, attended by the Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu. They called on the international community to implement a UN resolution that demands an immediate cessation of hostilities, and the resumption of negotiations, under threat of international sanctions.

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Episcopal and Catholic bishops from South Sudan have said that together they “stand committed to do all in [their] power” to realise an end to war between Sudan and South Sudan.

Following a three-day meeting in Yei, South Sudan, lead by Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro and Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, the 14 bishops issued a ‘Message of Peace’ which laid out their hopes and plans for an end to conflict.

Referencing the famous Martin Luther King speech, the bishop’s said: “We dream of two nations which are democratic and free, where people of all religions, all ethnic groups, all cultures and all languages enjoy equal human rights based on citizenship. We dream of two nations at peace with each other, co-operating to make the best use of their God-given resources, promoting free interaction between their citizens, living side by side in solidarity and mutual respect, celebrating their shared history and forgiving any wrongs they may have done to each other...."

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We are keenly aware of the great suffering caused by the non-implementation of several key parts of the CPA. The cry of pain continues to be heard from South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei, as well as from those affected by the escalation of conflict in the border region between Sudan and South Sudan. I pray that the UN Security Council Resolution and the AU Roadmap will result in real progress in settling the outstanding issues.

The church’s dedicated efforts in peace-building and advocacy continue to represent a powerful witness to the gospel. We are inspired by the untiring efforts to bring peace in Jonglei. We also stand in special solidarity with the church’s situation in the Republic of Sudan and will continue to press for freedom of religion and worship and the safety of the Christian community.

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South Sudan’s years of conflict were meant to be over when it won its independence from Sudan last July after generations of fighting with the people of the north. But the jubilation quickly faded, and now, not even a year later, after weeks of pointed barbs and border skirmishes, this vast and vastly underdeveloped country is once again mobilizing for war — and asking some of the poorest people on earth to pay for it, with whatever they have at hand....

Sudan and South Sudan have yet to resolve a number of prickly and vital issues, not least of which is how to demarcate a border of more than 1,000 miles and share billions of dollars of oil revenue. Border clashes escalated in late March, killing hundreds, and strategic oil fields have switched hands.

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The Anglican archbishop who was instrumental in delivering peace to Sudan has raised the spectre of full-blown war and appealed for restraint from the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan.

Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul Yak, leader of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, urged the two presidents to pursue peace in spite of the difficulties following the major clashes threatening the fragile peace that churches helped to broker in 2005.

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Sudan and newly-independent South Sudan accused each other of launching fresh attacks on their territories on Sunday as neither side showed any sign of bowing to global pressure to return to the negotiating table.

South Sudan said Sudanese troops attacked settlements about 10km (6 miles) on its side of the border and carried out air raids in a range of areas including its oil-producing Unity state.

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As war looms between Sudan and South Sudan, Christians of southern origin living in Sudan fear retribution from its Islamic government.

As of April 8, at least half a million ethnic southerners (the majority of whom are Christian) living in Sudan are now considered foreigners if they have not registered for citizenship. Officials in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, gave southerners another 30 days to register or leave the country.

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Sudan's Khartoum government says the country is officially in a state of war with South Sudan.

The top United Nations human rights official confirmed that statement by condemning Sudan's indiscriminate bombing raids that resulted in civilian casualties in South Sudan.

Khartoum began the week with a wave of air raids on Southern border areas, killing several civilians and hitting a UN peacekeeper base. South Sudan struck back with a vow to hold their positions in a contested oil field seized from Khartoum's army.

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The recommendations come in the report from the UK Parliament’s International Development Select Committee who held an inquiry into prospects for peace and development in the world’s newest country. The Anglican Alliance brought together the Episcopal Church of Sudan, the Diocese of Salisbury and Lambeth Palace to provide evidence to the inquiry.

Rebecca Coleman, representing the Episcopal Church of Sudan, and Canon Ian Woodward of the Diocese of Salisbury, gave oral evidence to the Select Committee, focusing especially on the church’s education services in South Sudan, and the role played by the Church, in particular by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul Yak, in peace-building.

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The cold war between Africa’s newest neighbours is heating up. South Sudanese troops advanced deep into Sudan on April 10th, capturing its most valuable oilfield, Heglig, in the biggest clash since the south seceded from the north last July. Southern troops claimed to be responding to air and ground attacks from their former master, but the scale of the offensive is unprecedented. A fragile peace process that has survived several bumps in the past few months may now falter. Sudan has suspended its participation in the divorce negotiations in neighbouring Ethiopia. Parliaments in both countries are calling for military mobilisation. The drums of war beat ever louder.

The last straw could be South Sudan claiming Heglig as its own. A ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2009 appears to put the field in the Sudanese state of Southern Kordofan. But the south now disputes this. “Heglig is deep inside our borders,” says Colonel Philip Aguer, a spokesman for South Sudan’s army, adding that its troops have moved farther north. Sudan will not accept this, and for once it seems to be getting some international support. The African Union is calling on the south to withdraw its soldiers immediately and unconditionally. Sudan has complained to the UN Security Council.

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Crimes against humanity in Sudan and South Sudan must be stopped — or the British Government will be guilty of allowing the horrors of Rwandan-style genocide to be repeated, Baroness Cox has warned.

In the wake of reports of ethnic cleansing in the Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile regions of Sudan, Lady Cox told the House of Lords on Mon­day of last week that the Gov­ern­ment must take a more robust approach.

“After Rwanda, the British Gov­ernment famously said that they will never condone another genocide, but this is precisely what they are now perceived to be doing.” The “powerful intervention” by Britain into Libya raised questions about whether its foreign policy was influ­enced by racism, she said.

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A second day of fighting between Sudan and South Sudan in their disputed border regions has prompted international concern that the conflict might develop into outright war.

The African Union says it is deeply alarmed by the clashes over oilfields, and called on both sides to exercise the utmost restraint.

Sudan has pulled out of negotiations with South Sudan.

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“The ongoing war against Christians and African indigenous people is more of an ‘ethnic cleansing’ in that they kill all black people, including Muslims, but they give specific connotation to the war in targeting Christians to secure funding and support from the Arab and Islamic world by saying this war is a religious war,” he said. “And in so doing, they get huge support from those countries.”

Aerial bombardment killed the five members of the Asaja Dalami Kuku family, which belonged to the Episcopal Church of Sudan, in Umsirdipa in the Nuba Mountains on Feb. 25, the source said.

The government in Khartoum is using Antonov airplanes to drop bombs, “coupled with state-sponsored militia targeting churches and Christian families,” said the humanitarian worker.

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An estimated 100 people have been killed in South Sudan in the latest of a series of ethnic clashes and cattle raids, officials say.

Jonglei state Law Enforcement Minister Gabriel Duop Lam told the BBC that at least 200 people had been injured.

The BBC's James Copnall, in Khartoum, says these figures suggest the attacks were on a very large scale.

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Born in Ireland, Sister Patricia Murray is a Loreto Sister and the Executive Director of an organisation called Solidarity with South Sudan.
As news reports tell of continuing violence and dispute in Africa’s newest nation, Sister Patricia is adamant that its story of hope and peace-building find its rightful place in the news, and in the history of the country, which she says, has enormous potential to develop.
Sister Patricia told Linda Bordoni that “Solidarity with South Sudan” is a consortium of more than 170 religious congregations, and carries forward a number of projects to train teachers, nurses and pastoral personnel in different locations throughout South Sudan.
She explains that “Solidarity” is an act of communion between religious institutes of men and women, which are members of the Unions of Superiors General and the Church in South Sudan under the direction of the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
And as is illustrated on the organisation’s website, after decades of civil war, when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in January 2005, the bishops of South Sudan invited the USG/UISG to consider the needs of their people. Following a consultative process it became clear that projects related to education, health and pastoral care are needed if the goals of the CPA are to be achieved.

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Christian humanitarian agencies are delivering relief aid to thousands of people displaced in inter-tribal conflict in South Sudan, the world's newest nation.

The assistance is targeting nearly 60,000 people in Jonglei State where a cycle of violence between two pastoralist communities is continuing. The Lou-Nuer and the Murle have a history of raiding each other's cattle, women and children, but Christian leaders want the communities to give up arms.

"I urge the government to disarm the two communities (whose members posses illegal arms), simultaneously. The action should also be extended to other armed communities in the state," Anglican Bishop Alapayo Manyang Kuctiel of Rumbek told ENInews in a telephone interview from South Sudan on 16 January.

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Hanging from the wall of Bishop Ezekiel Kondo’s living room — a few blocks from a silver-coated dome marking the tomb of Sudan’s 19th-century Muslim leader, the Mahdi — are a cross, pictures of fellow clergy members and a photo of him with the former archbishop of Canterbury above a small plastic Christmas tree.

Much has changed for Bishop Kondo, and for the nation, since the holidays last year. Though he presides over one of Sudan’s largest churches, he is more in the minority than ever. South Sudan, with its large Christian population, became an independent nation over the summer, making for a Christmas of mixed emotions.

“This Christmas, since Southern Sudanese have gone, we don’t know what the attendance will be, but I would say people will celebrate with mixed feeling of joy and fear,” said Bishop Kondo, who is the bishop of the Episcopal Church of Sudan and the former chairman of the Sudanese Council of Churches.

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Despite this year's vote by South Sudan for independence, churches in Sudan and South Sudan have decided to remain united, mainly to help denominations in Muslim-majority Sudan.

Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church on 28 October approved maintaining one conference covering the two states, alluding to shared history and existing "very real practical human links." In July, the Episcopal (Anglican) Church decided to remain one body for the next two years and the Sudan Council of Churches has also said it will not split.

"It's more about solidarity," observed John Ashworth, an advisor with the Sudan Ecumenical Forum, which enhances churches' work for peace in Sudan, on 3 November.

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Times are tense for North Sudan's Christians, said Episcopal Bishop of Khartoum Ezekiel Kondo, who was visiting the U.S. in October to meet with the Department of State and major nongovernmental organizations and to speak on a panel at an anti-genocide conference sponsored by Save Darfur.

Since July 9, when South Sudan became an independent country, Christians in the majority Muslim north have been under increasing pressure, Kondo said.

"As far as the north goes, the independence has brought a difference," he said. Christian government officials and private sector workers have been laid off; the government is introducing full Islamic Sharia law which poses a challenge to the church; and South Sudanese are not being given citizenship. People are leaving or being forced out, and the church in Khartoum has been diminished.

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On October 5-6 in Cairo, Egypt, bishops from the Diocese of Egypt and dioceses in the north of Sudan held a meeting of reflection and planning with several mission partners, including the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Relief and Development Fund. This important meeting was held for the benefit of discussing the challenges and needs facing the suffering northern dioceses of the Province of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church of Sudan. Upon completion of this meeting, the partners in mission with Sudan released an official communique stating the challenges facing this region, their specific needs, and the top priorities of the partners in mission in order to implement lasting peace in the Sudan.

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Begun in October 2006 by Mount Pleasant-based Mustard Seed International, a Christian, all-volunteer ministry, the Akot clinic has become an all-consuming focus of Deans, Mustard Seed's president, and a vital player in the lives of South Sudan's residents.

Since 2009, its medical director, Dr. Clarke McIntosh, has contended with South Sudan's 25 percent child mortality rate, malnutrition that affects about half the population and a high demand for basic medical care in an impoverished country that lacks infrastructure and basic social services.

Christian faith is what drives Deans and McIntosh. The men are responding to a clear calling, they said, and have devoted themselves to the task at hand: to improve the lives of the region's people and introduce them to the word of God.

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Muslim extremists have sent text messages to at least 10 church leaders in Khartoum saying they are planning to target Christian leaders, buildings and institutions, Christian sources in Khartoum said.

“We want this country to be purely an Islamic state, so we must kill the infidels and destroy their churches all over Sudan,” said one text message circulating in Khartoum last month. The text messages were sent in July and August.

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Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has declared a state of emergency in the Blue Nile State following heavy fighting in the region, the Sudan Tribune reported on Saturday.

Bashir has also dismissed Blue Nile state governor Malik Agar, who is also chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N), amid reports of aerial bombardments in the region. He instead appointed the commander of Sudanese army (SAF) base in the Blue Nile's capital of al-Damazin, Major General Yahya Mohamed Khair, as a military ruler of the state.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --South Sudan

The Primate of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan has called upon Muslim leaders in South Sudan to set aside sectarian concerns and work towards building a free and tolerant nation.

Speaking at a dinner held by President Salva Kiir of South Sudan at the State House in Juba on 20 August for Muslim leaders in Africa’s newest nation, Archbishop Daniel Deng called upon Christians and Muslims to work together for the common good.

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Witnesses told a House of Representatives subcommittee on Aug. 4 that the Sudanese border state of South Kordofan is descending into racial and religious violence, as the world looks on.

“The Nuba people fear that we will be forgotten, that the world will stand idly by while mass killings continue without redress,” said Anglican bishop Reverend Andudu Adam Elnail, of Sudan's Episcopal Diocese of Kadulgi, in his testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights.

“Our hope,” Rev. Elnail said, “is that the United States will lead the international community in taking prompt, effective action to protect tens of thousands of displaced people, including an untold number of civilians being killed house-to-house and bombed by their own government.”

Read it all and note that Kadulgi's Anglican bishop is among those cited.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --North Sudan • --South Sudan

The segment description is as follows:

Fr Joseph Marious is a priest with the young Uganda-based congregation, the Apostles of Jesus. Originally from Juba in South Sudan, he worked in the Nuba mountains as a missionary before coming to Rome, where he’s studying at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. He talked to Philippa Hitchen about his hopes for the birth of the new nation and about the ongoing plight of the people in the resource-rich Nuba mountain region....

Listen to it all (about 11 1/3 minutes).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --South Sudan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, hosted a roundtable meeting on South Sudan today at Lambeth Palace, with participants from government, NGOs, churches, media and academia.

The meeting, chaired by Baroness Kinnock, focused on the links between large scale development needs of the world's newest state, and ongoing governance, peace and security issues. The Archbishop spoke about the urgent need for peace dividends to be delivered in South Sudan in education and health, in order to foster long term peace.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --South Sudan

Less than a week after South Sudan celebrated its long-awaited independence, Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail of the Episcopal Diocese of Kadugli has said it is "devastating and saddening" to learn that his people of the South Kordofan region, "friends, brothers and sisters, children, my flock, have been killed mercilessly and are lying now in mass graves in Kadugli."

Elnail was responding to the Enough Project's Satellite Sentinel report that revealed the extent of the atrocities committed along the north-south border in recent weeks and identified what it says are three vast excavated sites used to dump the bodies of those who've been slaughtered.

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The international community must not take its “eyes off Southern Sudan at the moment”, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned on Saturday, the day the new African republic was founded.

Dr Williams told the General Synod in York that the situation in the region could not be ignored, as there was still the threat of “genocidal violence”, after reports of unrest in border regions, including Abyei and south Kordofan.

He said that he would write to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, “celebrating the inauguration of the republic, but urging the same level of international attention at this critical period” as in the run-up to the referendum in January. He would also register “profound concern” over the instability in Abyei and south Kordofan, and the “deliberate tar­geting” of the Nubian people.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * Culture-Watch • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --South Sudan

Father Lombardi noted how John Paul II "addressed, with his typical extraordinary courage in the face of rulers, the dramatic themes of justice and freedom" and was "welcomed with incredible enthusiasm by an immense crowd of Sudanese Catholics, mostly refugees from the south, who had fled from the violence of an endless civil war.”

"Eighteen years have passed," the spokesman reflected. "It is estimated that 2 million have died and 4 million have been displaced, but now we hope that the war is truly over and that the new republic of South Sudan, desired by the majority of its inhabitants, might begin a new history of peace."

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In an exuberant and joyous three-and-a-half hour service here July 10, South Sudanese Episcopalians celebrated the birth of their new nation, even as they looked towards the difficult future of their country.

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With South Sudan set to become an independent nation Saturday, Rhode Island Episcopal Bishop Geralyn Wolf will go to Washington in coming days to advocate for a renewed effort by the United States to secure peace and security in the troubled region.

Bishop Wolf noted that she has been invited by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse to lead the U.S. Senate in prayer at its July 14 session. Following that, she said, she and her husband, Thomas Bair Jr., plan to meet the other members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, Sen. Jack Reed and Representatives David N. Cicilline and James R. Langevin, about the problems facing the people of South Sudan.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Episcopal Church of the Sudan • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --South Sudan

A Dorset bishop who was invited to South Sudan to see the country celebrate its independence said it was a "jubilant" occasion.

The Diocese of Salisbury has had links with the region for 39 years and has sent several figures to the region.

Bishop of Sherborne, Dr Graham Kings, said it was important to show support for the new nation.

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Across South Sudan, jubilant crowds are celebrating their freedom and what they hope will be the start of a peaceful and prosperous future.

In a statement, the head of the Episcopal Church in Sudan, Archbishop Daniel Deng said, “We now have a real government and can now be identified as a nation, which has attracted international support.

“These are great achievements which must be recognized, celebrated and guarded carefully.”

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South Sudanese wept openly as they celebrated their independence Saturday, cheering, whistling and dancing down the streets in a ceremony fitting for the birth of a new nation.

"We are free at last," some chanted, flags draped around their shoulders.

A man on his knees kissed the ground.

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As predominantly Christian and animist South Sudan stands on the threshold of independence, one man who helped bring world attention to the suffering of believers there is no longer here to savour the day.

On Feb. 10, 1993, Pope John Paul made a tense visit to Khartoum and pulled no punches in a highly charged meeting with the country’s president, General Omar Hassan Ahmed al Bashir. In his meeting, the outspoken pope left diplomacy at the door, as was often his custom when he wanted to speak from the heart. He bluntly compared the suffering of Sudan’s Catholics to the crucifixion of Christ and told the Islamic government that only guaranteeing the rights of Christians and other minorities would bring peace....

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After five decades of guerrilla struggle and two million lives lost, the flags are flapping proudly here in this capital. The new national anthem is blasting all over town. People are toasting oversize bottles of White Bull beer (the local brew), and children are boogieing in the streets.

“Free at Last,” reads a countdown clock.

But from the moment it declares independence on Saturday, the Republic of South Sudan, the world’s newest country and Africa’s 54th state, will take its place at the bottom of the developing world. A majority of its people live on less than a dollar a day. A 15-year-old girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than she does of finishing primary school. More than 10 percent of children do not make it to their fifth birthday. About three-quarters of adults cannot read. Only 1 percent of households have a bank account.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

The U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Princeton Lyman this week expressed confidence that the breaking up of the North and South will take place peacefully but warned of many serious challenges ahead.

"Both sides really feel that a return to general war would be disastrous for both of them," he said at a news conference.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

The Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) consecrated Stephen Dokolo as the new Rt. Rev Bishop for the Diocese Lui in Mundri East, Western Equatoria stae, South Sudan, ...[this past] Sunday.

The consecration came after his appointment by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul to succeed the late Bishop Bullen Doli.

The co-consecrators were bishops from all the Episcopal dioceses in Western Equatoria, including Bishop Peter Munde of Yambio and Bishop Samuel Enos Peni of Nzara. Foreign church leaders included Swiss missionaries and the World Gospel Mission from Arua, Uganda.

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Anglicans from Melbourne and all over the world are offering prayers and support to Sudan and striving to find ways to help the chaos-torn nation, which is soon to be split into two separate countries.

Bishop Phillip Huggins of Melbourne’s North West Region said the city’s large Sudanese population still bore the scars of earlier civil wars.

“We hold the people of Sudan in our prayers, and as a community we will continue to offer what support we can to them,” Bishop Huggins said.

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“We are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people in a final attempt to erase our culture and society from the face of the earth.”

That’s the warning of African Episcopal Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail in northern Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. His warning is echoed by Operation Broken Silence.

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Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told Chinese media the impending split of his country's south risked triggering "time bombs", but said his government's bond with China would not be shaken by Beijing's courting of the secessionist south.

He made the comments in interviews published on Monday, the day he begins a state visit to China, his powerful patron and a major buy of Sudanese crude oil.

Beijing has been building ties with the emerging state in southern Sudan but continues to be one of the major supporters of Bashir, who faces indictment from the International Criminal Court over war crimes charges stemming from long-running fighting in the Darfur region.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • Asia • China

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The Anglican Alliance is co-ordinating with Anglican agencies to provide support for the Episcopal Church in Sudan during the current humanitarian crisis.

More than 53,000 people have been driven from their homes, numerous villages have been bombed, and government troops have used indiscriminate violence against civilians, in the run-up to the secession of south Sudan.

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Along with the Christian leaders represented in the Sudan Ecumenical Forum and Council of Churches and many more throughout the world, we deplore the mounting level of aggression and bloodshed in South Kordofan State and the indiscriminate violence on the part of government troops against civilians. Numerous villages have been bombed. More than 53,000 people have been driven from their homes. The new Anglican cathedral in Kadugli has been burned down. UN personnel in the capital, Kadugli, are confined to their compound and are unable to protect civilians; the city has been overrun by the army, and heavy force is being used by government troops to subdue militias in the area, with dire results for local people. Many brutal killings are being reported.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

(ENS) As Sudan's wanted President Omar al-Bashir said that he would not remove his Khartoum troops from the disputed oil-producing Abyei region, church and world leaders are insisting that advocacy for the war-torn south and for a lasting peace must continue.

"It seems only a little while ago that we were ratcheting up our advocacy with our government and other friends of the international community to ensure a safe and timely referendum," said Richard Parkins, executive director of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (AFRECS), referring to the historic January plebiscite when southerners voted almost unanimously to secede from the Islamic north....

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South Sudan is due to become independent in July, but Abyei is still claimed by both sides.

The northern Sudanese Army says it has taken control of Abyei, a contested area on the border with South Sudan.

Sudanese state television, based in Khartoum, said northern troops had "repelled enemy forces" in Abyei town. UN officials confirmed the development.

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A divided nation will not lead to a divided church, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan said last month in a statement released at the close of their Feb 11-12 meeting in Juba.

Official results of Southern Sudan’s January independence referendum showed that 98.83 per cent of the South voted for secession from the Khartoum government. The vote means that Africa’s newest nation will receive its formal independence on July 9, 2011. However, key issues remain unresolved, and must be negotiated between the north’s National Congress Party (NCP) and the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

In their first meeting since the independence vote, the Sudanese Bishops outlined the challenges facing the two nations and their church. South Sudan risked becoming a “failed state,” the bishops said, unless reforms promoting free markets and open government were implemented, and the border disputes with the north were settled.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Episcopal Church of the Sudan • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

After decades of on-again, off-again civil war in Africa’s largest country, the long-awaited democratic process has yielded amazing fruit. More than 98 percent of Southern Sudanese voted for independence from the Islamic Arab North, which was committed to the Islamization of the Christian and animist South.

That the referendum was held at all is miraculous. Although Sudan has no history of democracy, 80 percent of Southern residents voted. It was reported that even a 115-year-old woman voted in a polling place in Juba, the capital city of the South.

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, an International Criminal Court indicted war criminal, backed the final tally and said he wished to be the first to congratulate the new state. The move allows the 2 million internally displaced Southern Sudanese who dwell in squalid camps surrounding Khartoum, the capital city of the North, to return home. On July 9, Southern Sudan will formally become independent, barring a major return of violence.

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On Monday, the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission announced in Khartoum that 98.83% of the voters had backed independence.

"Those who voted for unity were 44,888, that is, 1.17%. Those who voted for separation were 3,792,518, that is, 98.83%," commission head Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil said.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

"Southern Sudan, because of the decades of war, has so little infrastructure," explains Bill Hammink, who overseas USAID in Sudan. "They are really starting construction here, starting from scratch in many ways."

Hammink says the new road will cut the costs of imports from Uganda, on which Southern Sudan depends, and boost trade. That's critical for an economy facing high prices, high unemployment and almost complete dependency on oil.

The goal of the United States and other donors is to prevent the failure of another state in Africa.

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Cheers and spontaneous dancing broke out as the first official announcement of results from South Sudan’s independence vote was made in the oil-rich region’s capital by members of commission that organized the referendum held earlier this month.

"The vote for separation was 99.57 percent," said Justice Chan Reec Madut, head of the southern bureau of the Referendum Commission, after reading the vote tallies for “unity” and “secession” for each of the south’s 10 states. Mr. Madut was referring to the results for the south, while Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, the head of the Commission, announced the results from polling in northern Sudan and in eight countries that held voting for South Sudan’s far-flung diaspora population.

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The interpretation is not so far-fetched, said Ellen Davis, a professor at Duke Divinity School who has been working with the Episcopal Church of Sudan to strengthen theological education there since 2004.

"There's no doubt that Isaiah 18 really is speaking about the people of the upper Nile," she said. "It really is speaking about the Sudanese people."

Davis said the belief in the prophecy is nearly universal among the Christians she has met in Sudan.

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[The] Rev. Jacob Nhail Guut recalls painfully the relentless bombardment of his village in Southern Sudan about 20 years ago.

"I was only ten years old and I can remember the intense bombing. We all had to flee to safety. After walking for 16 days in the bush without any food or water, we finally arrived in Ethiopia," Guut, a leader from the Episcopal (Anglican) Church in Sudan who still lives in Kenya told ENInews in an interview in Nairobi on 15 January.

The clergyman’s story captures the struggles of church leaders who went into exile and assembled refugee congregations which they now hope to take back home. The leaders are counting on the success of the referendum to hope for stability, peace and security.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Episcopal Church of the Sudan • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

The Rev. Peter Lual gathered his flock of Sudanese exiles in the parking lot of a Denny's restaurant in suburban San Diego.

Before him stood former guerrillas and farmers, some bearing the intricate facial scars that are a badge of manhood among the major tribes of southern Sudan. Others were students and teachers before they were swept up in the bloodshed of one of Africa's worst civil wars.

They stood together in a circle to pray as traffic droned by and diners walked past on a cloudy Saturday morning.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It was an unusual sight at Mass last Sunday [January 9] in the dusty regional capital of Bentiu. There were empty seats. But Father Samuel Akoch didn’t seem to mind, because this was an improbable historic day in Southern Sudan. Most of the absentees were around the corner, lining up for the chance to vote for secession, to create their own nation

REV. SAMUEL AKOCH (Saint Martin de Porres Catholic Church): I know that each of you came here to pray. I also know that each one of us is carrying our voting card in our pocket.

DE SAM LAZARO: And as the service concluded, it took on the fever of a campaign rally. Those voting cards came out and Father Samuel led a bee-line to the polling center, joining hundreds already there. Their ballot choice was as simple as the set-up of this polling center under a tree: Stay as one Sudan or separate into a new republic of South Sudan. That was the overwhelming favorite here. Father Samuel imagined that nation.

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Voting has ended in Sudan in the south's historic independence referendum, with a large turnout for the week-long poll.

The vote is widely expected to see the south choose overwhelmingly for separation from the north.

The referendum was a condition of a 2005 peace deal which ended a 21-year civil war.

Official results of the vote - which was largely peaceful - are not expected until early next month.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

South Sudan has reached the 60% turnout needed to pass the referendum on secession from the north, the south's ruling party and ex-rebel group says.

"The 60% threshold has been achieved but we are asking for a 100% (turnout)," the SPLM's Anne Itto said.

She did not give exact figures, but said it was based on polling centre reports for the first three days of the week-long vote which began on Sunday.

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Nyawer Majok lost two of her three sons as well as a brother to the conflict in her home country.

Malok Mading, a tall, sinewy man who is totally blind now, still vividly remembers both of the civil wars that ravaged his homeland.

“We lost so many,” Mading, 72, said in fragile but still energetic voice during a community dinner at St. Michael’s and All Angels Episcopal Church in Stone Mountain on New Year's Day. “I was always thinking about how and when we were going to end this long suffering.”

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They walked in their best clothes past villages and down dirt roads until they came to the church to fold away the pain of war and redraw the map of Africa in a referendum that began Sunday for an independent southern Sudan.

They carried walking sticks and memories of those lost in decades of bloodshed to a polling station to mark a moment in history and begin a chance for reinvention in one of the poorest corners of the continent. They cast their ballots as a children's choir sang from a radio and a goat- skin drum thumped in the distance.

"This ends our slavery at the hands of the Arabs," said Kasimiro Mogga Joseph, a priest at the All Saints Roman Catholic Church. "The Arabs considered us animals. They wanted this land but not its people. Being a priest, you feel the difficulties of your parishioners. They came to us crying and suffering during the war. We took them to hospitals and gave them hope."

Read it all and please join me in praying this week for the Sudan--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

On Sunday, after decades of war and more than two million lives lost, southern Sudan will get the moment it has been yearning for, a referendum on independence. All signs point to the people here voting overwhelmingly for secession, and the largest country on the continent will then begin the delicate process of splitting in two.

The United States government has played a pivotal role in bringing this moment to fruition, pushing the northern and southern Sudanese to sign a peace treaty in 2005 that set the referendum in motion. A proud, new African country is about to be born, but it will step onto the world stage with shaky legs. As it stands now, southern Sudan is one of the poorest places on earth.

Most people here scrape by on less than 75 cents a day. More than three-quarters of adults cannot read. Decades of civil war and marginalization have left the economy so crushed that just about everything is imported, down to eggs. According to Oxfam, a teenage girl has a higher chance of dying in childbirth than finishing elementary school.

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Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir says there is no alternative to peaceful co-existence with the north, on the eve of an independence vote.

Mr Kiir was speaking after meeting US Senator John Kerry, one of several international figures who have arrived for the vote beginning on Sunday.

The south Sudanese are expected endorse setting up the world's newest country.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

People across the Communion have stepped up to support of the people of Sudan as the country prepares for its historic referendum on Sunday (9th).

Online demonstrations of concern for the state of the country and for its pending vote include prayer walls, a Facebook campaign, videos and blogs.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams issued a statement on Friday calling the 9th January "an immensely important day for Sudan." He urged everyone to stand with the Sudanese people "to ensure that the referendum takes place peacefully and that the process and the results are fully respected."

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In many respects, the problems faced by Malakal’s Anglican cathedral are those faced by southern Sudan as a whole.

On Sunday, voters in the south will vote in a referendum that will decide if the region becomes the world’s newest state.

However, they will also be choosing to create one of its poorest and least developed.

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On October 23, I was one of 32 people crowded into the temporary office of the World Evangelical Alliance at Cape Town 2010. Twenty-eight of the people were representing the evangelical community of Sudan at what has been hailed as the most diverse gathering of the church ever. The rest of us were there to hear our Sudanese brothers and sisters' hopes and apprehensions as they approached the January 9 referendum on separate statehood for southern Sudan.

The Sudanese representatives said, "Pray, pray, pray." Pray for a fair and free election, without violent incidents or intimidation. As they took turns speaking, almost everyone earnestly repeated that phrase. They meant it.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

As I write this piece, preparations are on for Referendum in Southern Sudan which is to take place from the 9th to 15th January 2011. Due to lack of infrastructure and remote distance too many villages of Southern Sudan coupled with a very high rate of illiteracy necessitates a long period of voting. Many parts of Sudan lack good roads. To give you an idea, I am based in Kajo-Keji. During the rainy season, it takes me 10 to 12 hours to travel 260 kilometers from Kajo-Keji to Juba....

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If the south does split, what are the dangers?

The main rebel force in the south, the Sudan People's Liberation Army has dominated politics in the south since the fighting ended in 2005. But the area is still awash with weapons, militias and mistrust. The whole process is precarious. Experts say a fresh conflict is a real possibility.

Alex Vines, of London-based think tank Chatham House, said: "The referendum is a risky affair. If it's managed wisely by leaderships of the south and north then maybe an amicable separation can take place. There's a lot of danger it could backfire spectacularly -- we could see a renewed civil war, which is nothing new for Sudan."

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Energy, Natural Resources • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

A group founded by American actor George Clooney said Tuesday it has teamed up with Google, a U.N. agency and anti-genocide organizations to launch satellite surveillance of the border between north and south Sudan to try to prevent a new civil war after the south votes in a secession referendum next month.

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Renk is a town in the southern part of the country, and it couldn't be any sadder. Not a single street is paved, and there are no hotels or cinemas. Instead, there is a lot of dust, sand and stray dogs. On the edge of town live refugees who have made it all the way here from Ethiopia.

In recent weeks, Renk has managed to become even a bit more miserable. Hundreds of inhabitants have abandoned the town, and thousands of them are all packed up and ready to go. At a nearby military base, tanks stand ready for action. It is possible that Renk will soon find its way into international headlines.

These are tense times in Sudan, Africa's largest country. On January 9, the Southern Sudanese will decide in a referendum whether or not to secede from the northern part of the country. Should secession come to pass -- and it currently looks as though it will -- the world will witness the first founding of a new African state since Eritrea split off from Ethiopia in 1993. And Renk would become a place of high strategic value owing to its location near what will presumably become the new border.

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Voters in Southern Sudan will soon decide whether to secede from Sudan. Many anticipate that the referendum could result in renewed violence between the north and the south. Southern Sudan's regional representative in Cairo, Ruben Marial Benjamin, spoke with SPIEGEL about the approaching ballot.

SPIEGEL: On Jan. 9, 2011, Southern Sudan will vote on secession from the republic of Sudan. Are you certain that the majority will vote for secession?

Benjamin: Yes, we are already flying the flag of an independent state on our government buildings. The government in Khartoum doesn't have anything against it.

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Sudanese Episcopal bishop Samuel Peni had one request for central Iowans he met with this week: Pray for us.

Peni told people gathered during two nights last week at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in West Des Moines that a vote on Jan. 9 could split his native Sudan, Africa's largest nation, in two. He hopes for an independent southern Sudan as a result.

Getting that message out is why Peni left his ailing, pregnant wife behind to attend a summit of Sudanese refugees in Phoenix, Ariz., earlier in the week. He came to Iowa to visit the home of a local priest who befriended him during his studies at Wartburg Seminary in 2008.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Episcopal Church of the Sudan • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan

As January's referendum on independence for Southern Sudan approaches, tensions are running high in communities along what many expect will become a new international border with northern Sudan.

Packed buses arrive in Malakal daily with southerners coming home from the North. Church workers report the exodus is fueled by the fear of being attacked should the South vote to separate.

Similarly afraid in any possible post-referendum violence, Arab traders in the town's market are closing their shops and heading North, causing the price of basic commodities to rise as the flow of commercial goods from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, grinds to a halt.

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(ACNS) In a spirit of fraternity, The Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan and the Catholic Archbishop of Juba registered together at Hai Jalaba referendum registration centre today. But registering, they now qualify for voting on Referendum Polling Day scheduled for 9 January 2011. Accompanying them was the presidential advisor on Religious Affairs, H E Tijwok Adheaguer.

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The head of peacekeepers in the Darfur region of Sudan has warned of increased violence ahead of January's referendum on possible independence for the south.

Ibrahim Gambari condemned recent clashes between the Sudanese army and two Darfuri rebel groups.

Some analysts accuse the government of trying to eliminate the rebels before it deals with the referendum.

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A team from the newly formed US Civilian Response Corps is building a significant presence across the southern half of... [Sudan].

There is a possibility civil war could break out between the Christian south and Muslim north after the referendum in January which will decide by a simple majority whether southern Sudan becomes the world's newest sovereign state.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph Ambassador Robert Loftis, the Civilian Response Corps chief, who is directly answerable to the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said he was sending teams around the region to "observe, report and monitor"

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Here is the introductory blurb--

Caroline Cox was made a peer by Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980s, and since then she has been using her seat in Britain's House of Lords to speak out against injustices around the world on issues ranging from slavery in Sudan to the persecution of Christian minorities around the world. When she isn't sitting in the Lords, the 'battling Baroness' is traveling the world on behalf of HART - The Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, an organsiation she founded several years ago.

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An ecumenical delegation of Sudanese religious leaders met with U.N. officials and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Oct. 11 to express its fear of what might happen if the Jan. 9 referendum in which south Sudan is expected to vote for independence from the north is not carried out as planned.

"We told him we came to raise an alarm to the United Nations," said Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul of the Episcopal Church of Sudan during a press conference held at the Church Center for the United Nations, following a day of U.N. meetings.

"We are the church, we are in the ground. We are with the people. And we are knowing every thing that is happening in the ground there. So because of that we are here," Deng said.

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Please check it out--very interesintg.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

The world risks "sleepwalking" into a humanitarian disaster as Sudan prepares for a referendum on southern independence, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warned today.

Up to four million people of southern descent living in the north of the country could be forced out as refugees after the vote, scheduled for January next year, he said.

Dr Williams criticised the international community for "taking its eye off" the looming crisis, as rival forces of the north and south of the country edge closer to conflict.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has added his voice to those warning that Sudan is sliding back towards civil war.

World leaders, from President Obama to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, have raised concerns in recent weeks.

Now Dr Rowan Williams has said he is "not optimistic" that war can be averted in Africa's largest country.

"I am very concerned indeed, the forces pulling the country apart are getting stronger," he said, ahead of a news conference making public his concerns.

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Participants in the conference convened by the Anglican Church in Juba urged sustainability of peace and reconciliation between the North and the South irrespective of the referendum outcome .

They said that the conference would avail a chance for enlightening people on the risks of secession, adding that religious sects could play a significant function at this stage .

Archbishop, Daniel Deng Paul, lamented the absence of civil education leaders throughout the last 50 years who could have helped people make decision on issues crucial to them.

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Senior religious leaders in south Sudan have called on people to vote for independence in a referendum to be held January next year.

The vote was promised as part of a 2005 deal to end years of war between the mainly Muslim north and the south, where Christianity is common.

"The way to unity is destructive," Bishop Paul Yugusuk said.

He said southerners would be treated as second-class citizens if Africa's largest nation remained united.

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Manute Bol, who died last week at the age of 47, is one player who never achieved redemption in the eyes of sports journalists. His life embodied an older, Christian conception of redemption that has been badly obscured by its current usage.

Bol, a Christian Sudanese immigrant, believed his life was a gift from God to be used in the service of others. As he put it to Sports Illustrated in 2004: "God guided me to America and gave me a good job. But he also gave me a heart so I would look back."

He was not blessed, however, with great athletic gifts. As a center for the Washington Bullets, Bol was more spectacle than superstar. At 7 feet, 7 inches tall and 225 pounds, he was both the tallest and thinnest player in the league. He averaged a mere 2.6 points per game over the course of his career, though he was a successful shot blocker given that he towered over most NBA players.

Bol reportedly gave most of his fortune, estimated at $6 million, to aid Sudanese refugees. As one twitter feed aptly put it: "Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry & groupies. Manute Bol went broke building hospitals."

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