Ngok Dinka in central Sudan seek national identity cards
May 6, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – A delegation from the Supreme Council for Coordinating Affairs of Ngok Dinka of Abyei region Saturday has arrived in Sudan’s central town of Wad Medani to discuss ways to issue national identity cards for its community members residing in the Gezira State.
However, the two governments continue to treat the population of the region as its nationals.
Last February, President Omer al-Bashir underscored that Abyei is a Sudanese territory, instructing national authorities to provide its residents with full administrative services including issuance of identity cards and passports.
The secretary of organisational communication at the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in the locality of Wad Medani Hassan Abdel-Aziz Al-Maz said his party is “committed to supporting the entire issues of Ngok Dinka of Abyei”.
The official news agency SUNA reported that Al-Maz, who met the delegation Saturday, expressed pleasure to inaugurate the office of Ngok Dinka in the Gezira State as the first regional office.
For his part, the head of the supreme council and political secretary of the NCP in Abyei Chol Mawien Bol said they seek to prove that Abyei is a Sudanese territory, pointing the council is non-partisan.
He said that the number of Ngok Dinak community members residing in the cotton-producing Gezira State ranges from 6000 to 7000 people, saying they are distributed at the eight localities of the state.
The 2005 peace agreement which ended 21 years of war between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) provided for a referendum to be conducted by the people of Abyei to choose between remaining in the Sudan and joining South Sudan.
The Dinka Ngok organised a unilateral referendum from 27to 29 October 2013 to say they want to join the Republic of South Sudan.
Khartoum, Juba, the African Union and the international community refused to recognise the outcome of the vote.
(ST)