Attacks

Early on the morning of February 2, Member of Parliament Bakungu Mitondeke and his family were awakened by the arrival of heavily armed soldiers that prompted a firefight between the Congolese troops and Mitondeke’s personal security guards. The Provincial Security Committee had ordered a weapon search throughout the city of Goma, including at the house of Mitondeke. Two soldiers, two policemen, and a security guard died in the skirmish, and an additional six police officers and another security guard were injured.  Read More »

A diverse group of activists, diaspora, and Congressional staff came together on Capitol Hill last week to draw attention to the marginalization of the Beja people of eastern Sudan by celebrating the group’s rich history and culture. The Beja have inhabited the northeastern lands of Sudan bordering the Red Sea for roughly 6,000 years but are now struggling to maintain not only their land, property, and freedoms but also their existence as a cultural group.  Read More »

Last week, Russian Antonov planes bombed the Heiban Bible College in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan. Fox News covered the incident through an interview with Reverend Franklin Graham, president of the Christian evangelical group Samaritan’s Purse.  Read More »

This coming Thursday and Friday Washington, D.C., will host the latest meeting of the International Contact Group on the Great Lakes region. A new Enough Project report, “The International Contact Group and Steps Towards Stability in the Great Lakes” by Enough Policy Analysts Ashley Benner and Aaron Hall, presents key policy recommendations that the contact group should adopt to further promote peace, development, security, and economic diversification in the Great Lakes.  Read More »

This week's post in the series Enough 101 looks at the history of Somalia from dictator Mohammed Siad Barre's rule to the end of Western military engagement in the early 1990s, building off of last week's post that covered colonialism to independence to dictatorship from 1840 to 1976.  Read More »

The long-standing Lou Nuer-Murle feud in Jonglei state claimed the lives of a large number of civilians when some 6,000 Lou Nuer youth attacked the rival Murle in Pibor town at the end of December and early January. United Nations officials in the country cannot provide the exact number of people killed, but the U.N. estimates that 140,000 people were affected by the violence.

Some 70 Murle and 88 Lou Nuer are housed at the Juba Teaching Hospital, undergoing treatement. These patients, among the most severely injured, are a stark reminder of the challenges the new South Sudanese nation faces.  Read More »

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday (or on occasion, on Saturday).  Read More »

On February 1, Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, bombed a school in the village of Heiban in South Kordofan on the first day of classes. Eyewitnesses report that eight bombs were dropped and two landed inside the school compound destroying two buildings. No injuries were reported, even though the school was full of students, an outcome the church group that built and supports the school called “a miracle.”  Read More »

The U.N.’s top humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, visited some scenes of the recent bloodshed in South Sudan yesterday and expressed concern about what she said is a deepening humanitarian crisis. Amos’ four-day visit to South Sudan comes on the heels of inter-tribal clashes in Jonglei state where about 140,000 people have been affected by the fighting.  Read More »

On Thursday, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir issued a press statement outlining the reasons why the government of the Republic of South Sudan, or RSS, recently rejected a deal ostensibly designed to avoid the complete shutdown of oil production in South Sudan. Kiir further stressed that lasting peace between Sudan and South Sudan will not be found in an agreement concerning oil alone, but, rather, must be built atop resolutions to outstanding issues related to the disputed Abyei area and the North-South border, in addition to the economic and oil concerns that have recently stalled negotiations between Sudan and the RSS.  Read More »