Letter from Isoke No 10: Pregnant students and guava thieves
Liz Hodgkin, RVI Fellow and former Amnesty International Sudan researcher, is teaching at St Augustine’s School in Isoke village, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. This is her tenth letter from Isoke. Other letters: No 1 July 2012, No 2 October 2012, No 3 November 2012, No 4 December 2012, No 5 March 2013, No 6 April 2013, No 7 May 2013, No 8 June […]
Sudan and South Sudan Course 2012
The ninth course covering Sudan—and the first to cover the new nation of South Sudan—was held in Athi River, Kenya from 26 May to 1 June. The course was under the direction of two of the co-editors of recently-published The Sudan Handbook (2012): Justin Willis, of the University of Durham, and Jok Madut Jok, of Loyola Marymount College, […]
Letter from Isoke No 11: Ghost teachers, scorpions, broken chairs
Liz Hodgkin, RVI Fellow and former Amnesty International Sudan researcher, is teaching at St Augustine’s School in Isoke village, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. This is her eleventh letter from Isoke. Other letters: No 1 July 2012, No 2 October 2012, No 3 November 2012, No 4 December 2012, No 5 March 2013, No 6 April 2013, No 7 May 2013, No 8 June […]
Letter from Kapoeta: Fewer guns, more waterpoints
Philip Winter is an RVI Fellow and Central and Eastern Africa specialist. His account of the Congolese peace process A Sacred Cause was published in English in 2012 and in French in 2015 (Une Cause Sacrée, available from L’Harmattan in Paris). Last month I drove some 1,200km around the country of the Toposa and the Nyangatom, […]
As gold fuels Darfur conflict, activists push for more Sudan sanctions
… One new group of people has flocked to Darfur in recent years: gold miners. From all over Africa, they have left their families, homes and countries, heading to a largely forgotten war zone to dig for gold. Activists with interest in Sudan are now suggesting the U.N. and the U.S. level new, acutely targeted […]
Bashir, the ICC and jirtig
RVI Fellow Magdi el-Gizouli on the return of President Omer el-Bashir from South Africa President Bashir’s return to Khartoum after the drama of his ‘missed’ arrest in Johannesburg was to say the least anticlimactic. The microphone set up for him to address the ‘spontaneous’ crowd which gathered at the airport to greet him home did […]
Letter from Isoke No 12: Church, government, school fees, rebels, full moon and stars
Liz Hodgkin, RVI Fellow and former Amnesty International Sudan researcher, taught from 2012 to 2014 at St Augustine’s School in Isoke village, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. For her earlier letters from Isoke see the following: No 1 July 2012, No 2 October 2012, No 3 November 2012, No 4 December 2012, No 5 March 2013, No 6 April 2013, No 7 May […]
The South Sudan peace forum
The Rift Valley Institute organised a forum bringing together leading chiefs from five states of South Sudan in Nairobi last Saturday. The forum brought together the chiefs to discuss the current crisis in the country and the role they and other traditional leaders played where peace was concerned. The chiefs included Nyuong Danhier Gatluak the […]
Himeidti and his President: War as a livelihood
RVI Fellow Magdi el-Gizouli on the ascendancy of the commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces The media simply can’t get enough of him. The commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, famous as Himeidti, a motherly diminutive version of his first name, is as ubiquitous as Zain advertisements. Two major newspaper published […]
Juba Lecture Series 2013
The 2013 RVI Juba Lecture series, held in collaboration with the Centre for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Juba, were held on 6-8 March 2013 at the university’s New Hall, addressing the theme ‘Building the Constitution in South Sudan’. The three keynote speakers were Professor Akolda Tier, Chair of the South Sudan […]