By Anthony Barich
PERTH Catholic Sudanese refugees displaced by a 55-year civil war that has claimed about 2.2 million lives prayed at a 3 July Mass for a peaceful future for their homeland ahead of Southern Sudan’s 9 July independence.
War has been ongoing in the oil-rich country since 1954 between Muslims
in the north, who have been in power, and Christians and other
traditional religions from the region in the south. While sporadic conflicts began soon after residents of Southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly to secede from Sudan in a January referendum, the violence intensified in May this year as government troops from the North sought to control key areas in South Kordofan, which borders the oil-rich states of Unity and Upper Nile.
The most recent government violence has targeted the Nuba people around Kadugli, the South Kordofan capital, with witnesses reporting Sudanese troops going door-to-door to hunt down the opposition.
Attacks in May centred on Abyei, farther to the south, near the undefined border. Abyei is home primarily to members of the Dinka Ngok tribe, supporters of the government of Southern Sudan.
Salesian Fr Albert Saminedi, chaplain to Perth’s African-born Catholic community who worked in Sudan for nine years, told The Record that the 9 July independence will be according to a boundary line drawn up in 1960, but authorities from the north want the line changed to include the oil-rich areas.
The war, which has claimed 10 times more lives than the nearby Darfur conflict, has forced over 40,000 refugees to flee to Australia through refugee camps in nearby Egypt, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia, Fr Saminedi said.
In Perth, Catholic Sudanese refugees gather for Mass and fraternity weekly at St Bakhita’s Church in Westminster, named after a slave kidnapped at age seven and re-sold several times, finally in 1883 to Callisto Legnani, the Italian consul in Khartoum, the Sudan capital located in the north.
Perth’s Sudanese Catholics will gather again with other Sudanese in Mirrabooka on 9 July to celebrate the birth of a new nation that locals call “The New Sudan”, Fr Saminedi told The Record.
The Catholic Church is very active in South Sudan, but has been heavily persecuted, with very few Christians in the north, he said.
“Christian missionaries have been expelled from Southern Sudan a number of times, and the Catholic Church, during this time of conflict, is very close to the people, taking care of their education and healthcare by the missionaries,” said Fr Saminedi, who organised the building of 11 schools and five churches in his nine years as a missionary in Wau, a city in Southern Sudan on the western bank of the Jur River.
On 3 July, Perth Sudanese Catholics prayed for the birth of the nation and that conflict in various parts end, “so the people may rejoice and the new nation will live in harmony and peace”, said Fr Saminedi.
The Salesian priest worked for nearly 20 years as a missionary in Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and Sudan.
He was in Egypt in March during the Arab uprisings.
“We ask the faithful to pray for these people, that they may truly experience peace and joy, and that they may unite themselves and build a new nation together, putting aside their differences,” said Fr Saminedi, who is also parish priest at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Girrawheen.
– additional reporting by CNS