Peace in Sudan Also Brings Uncertainty

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LANKIEN, Sudan - Refugees are coming back, young men are searching for brides and the hum of crickets and chirping birds has replaced the stutter of gunfire a year after a truce ended a 21-year war that killed 2 million people in southern Sudan.

But villagers living in places unnamed on any map — without roads, electricity, schools or clinics — say they still feel forgotten, and fear war will return if peace does not also mean prosperity.

Guns are the most modern innovation in sight. A lucky few have wheel-driven pumps to draw water.

"We have been left behind to walk with the cows," says medical worker Francis Gatluak, 48. "People in Sudan are not treated equally ... and peace will not stay until they are."

Centuries of hatred have built up between north and south Sudan since Arab Muslims invaded Africa's Nubian kingdoms in the mid-600s in search of slaves and converts among its Coptic Christians. The Nubians repulsed them, but a gradual Arabization took place and continues today in Africa's largest country, covering an area one-third the size of the United States.

Ancient animosities over land and water were compounded by the discovery of oil in south Sudan, triggering a rebellion in 1983 by mainly Christian and animist southerners.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060109/ap_on_re_af/sudan_year_of_peace