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Children get water in devastated town at center of contested border region of Abyei

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A boy and girl collect water in Abyei, a town at the center of the contested Abyei region along the border between Sudan and South Sudan. Homes here were looted and burned in 2011 when soldiers and militias from the northern Republic of Sudan swept through the area, chasing out more than 100,000 Dinka Ngok residents. A few thousand families have returned since northern combatants withdrew in 2012, yet their life is precarious. Although United Nations peacekeepers from Ethiopia today patrol the region, renewed attacks by northern-backed Misseriya militias in 2013 have many worried. The African Union has proposed a new peace plan, including a referendum to be held in October 2013, but it has been rejected by the Misseriya and Khartoum. The UN mission here also provides water to these roadside containers from which residents can obtain safe drinking water. The town's wells were destroyed by the northern combatants before they left in 2012.

Filename
south-sudan-2013-jeffrey-abyei-154.jpg
Copyright
Paul Jeffrey
Image Size
4928x3280 / 3.3MB
Contained in galleries
Abyei
A boy and girl collect water in Abyei, a town at the center of the contested Abyei region along the border between Sudan and South Sudan. Homes here were looted and burned in 2011 when soldiers and militias from the northern Republic of Sudan swept through the area, chasing out more than 100,000 Dinka Ngok residents. A few thousand families have returned since northern combatants withdrew in 2012, yet their life is precarious. Although United Nations peacekeepers from Ethiopia today patrol the region, renewed attacks by northern-backed Misseriya militias in 2013 have many worried. The African Union has proposed a new peace plan, including a referendum to be held in October 2013, but it has been rejected by the Misseriya and Khartoum. The UN mission here also provides water to these roadside containers from which residents can obtain safe drinking water. The town's wells were destroyed by the northern combatants before they left in 2012.