Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
27 October 2009
Khartoum — A Sudanese bishop has warned that the country could return to war, with tensions apparently increasing.
"Something is in the air," he said, noting reports that military groups are arming themselves in the run-up to the referendum on secession between the north and south Sudan.
"It needs just one single shot to explode and we will go back to the bush," Bishop Macram Gassis of El Obeid, Sudan told Aid to the Church in Need.
He noted reports that both the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army and the military in Khartoum are arming themselves.
"To see arms being amassed, to see military preparations being made - is this an indication of a peaceful mind? It indicates that something is in the air," he commented.
Parts of the Nuba Mountains, which were previously evacuated by the Khartoum government, are currently occupied by the state military.
The bishop voiced concerns that the census to register the number of voters and to apportion power between the regions has not been conducted properly. He told ACN he has not seen the census being conducted.
Bishop Gassis told ACN that people in the south claim that the Khartoum-based Government of National Unity is not giving them their fair share of the oil.
He predicted it "isn't going to be easy" if the south wants secession. "I don't know how our people will face another armed struggle. It is always the elderly, women and children who suffer," he added.
"We are in the hands of God. We ask God to save us from breaking down and going back to the gun - the gun will not solve the problem."
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