Nuba citizens want Coadjutor Archbishop to advocate for peace

The appointment of Bishop Michael Didi Adgum Mangoria from the Diocese of El Obeid, in Sudan, as Coadjutor Archbishop to Cardinal Gabriel Zubeir Wako of the Archdiocese of Khartoum was announced on 15 August 2015. Nevertheless, the new Coadjutor Archbishop has his work cut out for him. Since Archbishop Didi is the first Nuba to be appointed to such a position, many Nuba citizens want him to use his position to work for a peaceful resolution to the problem of the Nuba Mountains.

According to Sudan’s Radio Voice of Peace located in Gidel, a very remote area of the Nuba Mountains, a citizen by the name of Achabi Nasir has appealed to the new Coadjutor Archbishop to help build new Churches and Chapels in the Nuba Mountains. Another citizen, Chalu Hassan wants the new Church leader to talk to the Government of Khartoum about peace in the Nuba Mountains, “as many people are suffering due to the ongoing conflict,” he said.

The Nuba Mountains is an area located in South Kordofan, Sudan. It is an area comprising about 48,000 sqkm of green uplands and farmland. The area is home to indigenous ethnic groups collectively known as the Nuba peoples. The Nuba Mountains are a former frontline region in Sudan’s north-south civil war.

The region has remained under the control of the central government of Sudan and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between (Sudan and South Sudan) did not give the Nuba Mountains the right to join South Sudan in its vote for independence, in 2011. Residents of the Nuba Mountains were to have held popular consultations to determine their future. These consultations have stalled. 

Khartoum is home to thousands of Nuba citizens who have fled the Nuba mountains  to avoid a protracted conflict and their long marginalised region.

Reports of indiscriminate bombings and killings of the citizens of the Nuba mountains by Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir's government have been documented. The war against the people by the Government of Sudan continues as the international community seems to be at a loss of what to do with the issue of the Nuba Mountains

Partly due to atrocities in the Nuba mountains, President Omar al-Bashir is now the only serving head of state indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for mass atrocities, genocide and crimes against humanity. Most of the war crimes, however, stem from Bashir’s genocidal activities in Darfur.

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