Mark C. Hackett, Special to the Pulitzer Center
Sudan: The Forgotten North
Fragile states provide fertile ground for trafficking, piracy, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, disease pandemics, regional tensions, and even genocide. This Gateway examines modern crises that find their roots in international historical events and draws parallels between current global issues and topics covered across the curriculum.
In Sudan, we've heard this story before. Marginalization of the country's peripheries has led to armed rebellions in the south, the west (Darfur), and the east of the country.
In 2005, a historic peace agreement ended more than two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan. It was Africa's longest civil war, killing some two million people, sending four million others fleeing and literally burning southern Sudan to the ground.
The long-awaited peace came with a vision for a new Sudan. A democratic Sudan. One where the Sudanese people would live with rights and freedoms, enshrined in a new constitution.
Sudanese national security forces expelled a Canadian-Egyptian journalist, Heba Aly, just days after she made an inquiry about domestic arms production.
Sudan has become synonymous with war, due to the five-year conflict raging in Darfur. The UN estimates that 300,000 people have died and close to 2.5 million others have been displaced.
In a crowded United Nations conference room in a southwestern Sudanese town called Wau, an exchange of sorts took place between two men of very different worlds who had more in common than they might have thought. At the front of the room was Constable Charles Obeng, a Canadian originally from Ghana, on Africa's west coast.
Sitting, waiting, sweating. When you live on the margins in Sudan, there's nothing much behind you, and nothing much in front to look forward to.
Heba Aly reports on a village at the edge of the Nubian Desert in northern Sudan. Sudanese people there say they're being marginalized by their government.
A delegation from the northern Sudanese village of Selem visits the mayor's office to complain of services in their village. July 2008.
