May 24, 2015 (KAMPALA) - The South Sudan Human Right Society of Advocacy (SSHURSA) has embarked on educating the various youths and women who fled or have crossed in neighboring Uganda about issue of transitional justice on post-conflicts in South Sudan.
SSHURSA's executive director Biel Boutros Biel told Sudan Tribune their organisation was doing what it could to create awareness among the internally displaced and refugees who left their homes due to conflict on justice issues.
“By these few people coming together they could be able to get the knowledge's and skills and understanding basic principle of transitional justice, and they will be able to spread the message within their communities,” said Biel.
He argued that bringing together South Sudanese was a good idea as solutions are being sought on whether to opt for persecution or take people to face court or a truth and reconciliation commission.
“Although there is violent on the civil war in South Sudan, we believed that one time, one day peace, will come to South Sudan and South Sudanese will remain being South Sudanese a country for all the citizens of South Sudan whereby there is need, therefore it high time that people are brought together and discuss this issue in advance,” stressed the official.
PARTICIPANTS SPEAK OUT
Tap Guek, one of participants at the workshop, said most South Sudanese were not aware of what was inside the constitution. He equally admitted not knowing the different kinds of court systems.
“Today I can now differentiate between the supreme court and the judge and some articles right in the transitional constitution of South Sudan,” Guek told Sudan Tribune at the workshop in Kampala.
Martha Nyawuora, another participant, said women in South Sudan lacked knowledge on their rights as stipulated in the constitution.
“I have learned so many things about the rights of women, of which I never came across. Not only women rights, but the constitution is about one man, which is very dangerous,” she said.
“I feel like in case of any adjustment in the current constitution, there is need for inclusiveness,” Nyawuora added.
SSHURSA is one of the human rights entities in South Sudan, which who is calling upon the warring parties in the country to think about their citizens, occasionally warning that their self-interest will likely worsen the lives of innocent civilians in the world's youngest nation.
Biel says citizens must be respected because, without them, there would never be a constitution. He stressed that the peoples' will must be recognised in the transitional constitution of South Sudan.
The rights body, as part of its recommendation, called on parties to work together in identifying the root causes, accountability on those who took law into their hands, formation of transitional government of national unity (TGNU), compensation of lives and properties destroyed in order to achieve a national reconciliation of healing.
(ST)
May 24, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese cabinet on Thursday will hold its final meeting on Thursday to mark the end of its term before president Omer Hassan al-Bashir's swearing in ceremony in early June.
Sudan Tribune has learned that senior government figures received formal invitations to attend the meeting which was postponed from its original date of May 25th.
Bashir is expected to address the ministers and thank them for their efforts in the past period before taking a full photo of the cabinet.
In a related issue, it is expected that the Council of States and the National assembly would hold separate meetings in which its members will take the oath office and new speakers will be elected.
Some reports said that former parliament speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir is the likely candidate to preside over the Council of States while former Vice president Ali Osman Taha could become the speaker of the parliament.
The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) will hold a meeting on Wednesday with the issue of the new cabinet topping the agenda.
However, it is not clear if the decisions will be made at that meeting.
Bashir could issue a decree delegating the Undersecretaries to run their ministries until a new cabinet is sworn in.
Besides the NCP, the cabinet will include other pro-government parties such as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Darfuri Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM).
Bashir and the NCP secured a landslide victory in the elections held last April that were shunned by most major opposition parties and discredited by the United States and European Union (EU).
It was also marked by very low turnout that was attributed to apathy of Sudanese voters.
(ST)
24 May 2015
KHARTOUM - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed a contribution of €9 million (US$9.7 million) from the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department (ECHO) to its emergency operations in Sudan.
The funds will help WFP prevent hunger and treat malnutrition among the most vulnerable people in Sudan. WFP will use the contribution to provide life-saving food assistance to more than 152,000 displaced people in West and South Darfur for two months, as well as to more than 193,000 newly displaced people across Darfur for four months. This includes people who were displaced in 2014 and have not been able to return home, in addition to those who have been displaced since January this year.
The contribution will also be used to buy Super Cereal Plus (a nutritious porridge) for the treatment of malnutrition in about 58,000 children aged under five, pregnant women and nursing mothers in the Darfur region and in the states of Kassala, Red Sea.
"The humanitarian situation in Sudan remains critical following years of conflict, natural disasters and underdevelopment. The response to acute malnutrition is one of the main strategic pillars of intervention of the European Commission in the country, with the purpose of saving the lives of children under the age of five,” said ECHO Head of Office in Khartoum Jeroen Uytterschaut. “The European Commission and the EU as a whole is among the main donors for humanitarian assistance in Sudan and thanks to our partnership with the World Food Programme, hundreds of thousands of Sudanese will continue receiving life-saving food aid.”
The EU is a major donor to WFP Sudan, providing €22.9 million in support of emergency operations from 2014 to 2015. Since 2012, ECHO has contributed more than €67 million towards WFP's emergency operations and a further €9.8 million towards the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), managed by WFP, which provides safe and reliable passenger and light cargo services to the entire humanitarian community in Sudan.
“We are very grateful to ECHO for their continous support to WFP's operations in Sudan. This latest contribution will help us reach vulnerable groups in the country through both life-saving and nutritional asistance, especially during the lean season when food stocks are depleted and children and mothers in need could easily slide into malnutrition,” said WFP Sudan Country Director Adnan Khan.
In 2014, ECHO's contribution enabled WFP to assist some 80,800 children, pregnant women and nursing mothers mostly in Kassala and Red Sea states. It also supported some 38,350 refugees in Kassala state, 149,500 vulnerable people in South Kordofan and another 35,000 internally displaced people in North Kordofan through food voucher programmes.
In 2015, WFP plans to assist 3.7 million people across Sudan, of whom 2.7 million live in the conflict-affected region of Darfur, internally displaced people in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, refugees in Kassala state and other food insecure vulnerable groups elswhere in the country.
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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. Each year, WFP assists some 80 million people in around 75 countries.
Follow us on Twitter @wfp_media and @wfp_africa
For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Amor Almagro, WFP/Khartoum, Tel. +249 183248001 (ext. 2114), Mob. +249 912174853
Abdulaziz Abdulmomin, WFP/Khartoum, Tel. +249 183248001 (ext. 2123), Mob. +249 912167055
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
May 24, 2015 (ADDIS ABABA) - An Eritrean opposition group on Saturday called on other exiled opposition organization for a more unified military action to depose the regime og president Isaias Afewerki.
The Ethiopian based Red Sea Afar Democratic Organization (RSADO), made his call for opposition unity one day ahead of the Eritrean nation sets to celebrate the 24th Independence Day anniversary.
RSADO chairman, Ibrahim Haroun, told Sudan Tribune that although the country secured independence in a hard owned struggle, the government however never guaranteed democratic rights of the Eritrean people.
Haroun said the regime instead ignored the long war of liberation aimed to produce a unified Eritrea and favoured to establish a one-party state by destroying all other opposition parties forcing them to exile.
The opposition leader accused the Eritrean leader Afeworki of dividing unity of the nation and nationalities of the people in order to secure grip on power.
The Eritrean president had been in power since 1991, when the country gained independence from Ethiopia after 30 years of freedom for struggle.
However, the Red Sea nation-under Isaias-rule had never conducted election since independence nor did it implemented the constitution ratified in 1997.
Last year, during the 23thd Independence Day anniversary the Eritrean president pledged to draft a new constitution however that has never happened.
The rebel leader, Haroun says the game being played by the president is enough and it is about all opposition forces as well as the Eritrean Army to join a planned wider military strike to topple the regime and build a new democratic Eritrea.
Haroun called on regional actors and on the international community to support the Afar rebel movement and put pressure on the regime to stop human right violations including ethnic cleansing against Afar minorities.
Considered militarily stronger than the other exiled Eritrean opposition groups, RSADO vows to intensify attacks against the Eritrean regime.
Meanwhile some 4,000 Eritrean refugees residing at camps in Ethiopia's Afar regional state town's of Asayta and Berahle Camps on Saturday rallied in protest to the ongoing oppression in Eritrean against Eritreans.
They called on the international community to intervene to stop the human right violations in the Red Sea nation.
(ST)