January 21st 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – Sudan’s Arab Misseriya tribe have threatened to form a government for the disputed region of Abyei and to fully consider it as a part of the Sudanese territory, the Sudanese media have reported.
Abyei, an area belonging to the nine Ngok chiefdom, is a disputed territory between Sudan and South Sudan. As Dinka claim its ownership, the Arab Misseriya tribe also say the territory belongs to them.
In a letter sent to the Sudanese government this week and seen by the Khartoum based Al-Intibaha newspaper, the Misseriya urged the government to form a new government for Abyei considering it as their territory or else they will enter it soon and form their own government.
Mohamed Omar Ansari who urge the Sudanese government to declare Abyei as a Sudanese territory told Al-Intibaha that the Misseriya tribe are ready to enter Abyei region considering it as a Sudanese territory.
“If the government does not do so, we will declare our government unilaterally,” he said adding that “we welcome the peaceful coexistence of the components of the region.”
The Abyei Area is an area of 10,546 km2 or 4,072 sq mile in Sudan accorded “special administrative status” by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict (Abyei Protocol) in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War. The capital of Abyei Area is Abyei Town.
Under the terms of the Abyei Protocol, the Abyei Area was declared, on an interim basis, to be simultaneously part of the states of West Kordofan (Sudan) and Northern Bahr el Ghazal (South Sudan).
In contrast to the borders of the former district, the Abyei Protocol defined the Abyei Area as “the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905”. In 2005, a multinational border commission established this to be those portions of Kordofan south of 10°22′30″ N.
However, following continued disputes that erupted into violence and threatened the CPA, an international arbitration process redrew Abyei’s boundaries in 2009 to make it significantly smaller, extending no further north than 10°10′00″ N.
This revised border has now been endorsed by all parties to the dispute.
