North-south trade flourishes in Sudan after peace

By Opheera McDoom

WARAWAR, Sudan, March 7 (Reuters) – Ismail Noureddin lugs his wares on an epic five-day off-road drive to one of the largest markets in southern Sudan, lured by sales made possible by a peace deal that ended years of civil war.

Noureddin, from northern Sudan, says it is his first trip to Warawar, 900 km (500 miles) southwest of Khartoum, because he heard peace had come.

The government and southern rebels signed an agreement in January to end more than two decades of fighting in the south of the country, Africa’s largest.

“Because of the peace we work together now,” he said.

Warawar was one of the first areas in the south to open a “peace market”, where Arab traders from the north would come despite the fighting to exchange goods with the southerners.

Goods the northerners bring include basics like sugar, oil and even onions.

Pastor Salva Kiir Amet said the market was set up in 1991 and a committee formed between Arabs and non-Arab southerners to encourage interaction but, since the peace deal was signed, more and more traders are flooding in.

The market town now thrives as a rare southern meeting point where Arabs live among the non-Arab Dinka tribes in an area controlled by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Southern Sudan has been embroiled in civil war for all but 11 years since independence from Britain in 1956. The peace deal ends the latest phase, in which about 2 million people died and and more than 4 million fled their homes.

The war broadly pitted the Islamist government in Khartoum against the mainly pagan or Christian south, complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.

PROFITS

Adil Sayyid, an Arab, said he started coming to Warawar even before the peace agreement was signed, having made his first trip more than a year ago.

“I travel for five days, stay one day, and then go back,” he said.

There is a compelling financial incentive: goods in the war- ravaged south, where there are few roads and little infrastructure, can cost up to twice as much as in the market back up in North Kordofan state.

The Arabs, dressed in their white turbans and flowing robes are easy to spot in the south, where many people are lucky to have any clothes at all.

And southerners are glad to welcome the traders.

Warawar is 15 days’ hard driving from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and completely cut off during the rainy season from May to September, when roads turn to swamps.

“The Arabs then come on donkeys, because the trucks cannot get through,” Amet said.

Even the few international aid workers who live in this remote part of the world come to Warawar, where they can find soft drinks and other goodies from Khartoum.

Warawar is also a magnet for those who fled the fighting years ago and are now returning home in their thousands.

Akon Nyan Kut, with six children in tow, spent her last 30 Sudanese dinars (12 U.S. cents) on a ride on a commercial truck to reach Warawar. She had taken refuge hundreds of miles north in the capital Khartoum during the war.

But many of those returning home are finding it increasingly difficult as aid agencies struggle to find the funds to supply their immediate needs, such as food and water.

Kut was carrying her malnourished 1-year-old baby, who no longer had the energy to flick the flies buzzing around his eyes.

Most of her possessions were stolen along the way, but she kept hold of a bag with some clothes, and proudly displayed two white plastic bracelets — all she had left.

But the 33-year-old said she’d stay, no matter what.

“Even if I am suffering from hunger, I am so happy to be home,” she said.

($1=250 Sudanese dinars)