Dinka herders plan mass cattle drive through South Sudan capital
Nov 29, 2005 (NAIROBI) — Thousands of Dinka herders displaced by Sudan’s north-south civil war will drive some 1.5 million head of cattle through southern Sudan this week as they return to their homes following a January peace deal, a UN official said Tuesday.
About 3,000 Dinkas are to push their prized cattle across the White Nile at a bridge in Juba, the capital of semi-autonomous south Sudan, in one of the largest single bovine movements the region has ever seen, the official said.
The cows will driven through the center of the town in groups of 10,000 beginning later this week after initially reluctant community leaders and local authorities gave final approval to the scheme on Monday, he told AFP.
“It’s the only crossing point for many, many miles,” said Simon Crittle, a spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP) in southern Sudan. “It looks like it’s all going to be fine, if dusty.”
With their cows, the Dinkas fled the long-running conflict between Khartoum and the ex-rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) from their homes in Bor in Jongolei state across the White Nile to Western Equatoria state in 1991.
“Now that the war is over and the harvest is in, the Dinka are moving the herd back to their homeland in Bor,” Crittle said.
The WFP plans to assist the vulnerable human returnees in the group — children and the elderly and sick — with food aid and transport up the river to Bor by barge while Dinka warriors herd the cattle up its banks, he said.
The group had planned to return home earlier but were slowed by sporadic clashes with local tribes who complained the huge numbers of cattle were destroying badly needed crops, according to local officials.
The returning Dinkas, from Sudan’s largest tribe, are among four million southern Sudanese who fled their villages during the 21-year war many of whom now going back to their homes after the January 9 peace agreement.
The war, in which some 1.5 million were killed, pitted the Muslim-dominated government in Khartoum against the mainly Christian and anamist south.
The peace deal includes wealth and power-sharing arrangements, created a national unity government in Khartoum and gives southern Sudan a six-year period of autonomy after which it will hold a referendum on secession.
(/AFPST)