Since I live in Nairobi, I have a lot of friends going in and out of Sudan. Since it's such a rough field, they go in for 3 or 4 months at a time and then come out for a break for like two weeks. Recently, several of my friends have been in Nairobi for a month or more.
A couple of my friends work in a town called Abwong, which is in the far southern part of the country. This town is populated mainly by two tribes, called the Dinka and the Nuer. The Dinka are more pastoralists, keeping lots of cattle, and the Nuer are farmers. They live with a strained relationship, since sometimes the Dinka's cattle get loose and trample the Nuer's crops.
Lately, the Dinka have been accusing the Nuer of cattle raiding. Suddenly in the last few weeks, fighting has erupted between the two tribes and they've moved from spearing each other to hauling out their automatic weapons, remnants of the still-simmering civil war that has torn through the country for the last 20 years.
In the last 24 hours, 7 people have been killed and many more injured. Our missionary compound is right on the border between the two tribes, so all the missionaries there could be in possible danger (even though they are not the targets of the fighting).
Some of the guys here that are still in town are scheduled to fly into Sudan next week. They would stop first in Malakal, which is a rather large base, and then head on to Abwong. But for now, it looks like they will be stuck in Malakal well into the foreseeable future.
We also have some Ethiopian missionaries already in Abwong. They are reporting the violence, and our Sudan director is considering whether or not to evacuate them.
PLEASE pray for Sudan. There is a presidential election this year, which could really spawn some ugliness, and we all know about the genocide in Darfur. This is a country that needs God!
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