Southern Sudan rail link re-opens

[John Ashworth]

The rail link from north to south Sudan was cut a couple of decades ago when the southern liberation movement destroyed a bridge near Aweil. Apparently it has now been repaired. I must try to get to Wau to have a look! Last time I was there a couple of years ago there was no sign of life at the derelict railhead.

Bashir and Kiir converge in Wau to inaugurate railway

Thursday 11 March 2010

By James Gatdet Dak

March 10, 2010 (JUBA) – Leaders of the Sudan’s ruling parties that signed the North-South peace deal five years ago are in Wau, the state capital of Western Bahr el Ghazal, to inaugurate a railway line that connects northern and southern Sudan.

President Omer Hassen al-Bashir of Sudan and his deputy and President of the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit arrived Wau on Wednesday for Thursday’s inauguration ceremony.

The old railway, which will resume its function for the first time after the war, had recently finished reconstruction or repair and its inauguration is seen as a campaigning bit for the two incumbent presidents who also campaign as flag bearers for their respective parties at different levels of government. Bashir is contesting for presidential seat at the national level while Kiir contests for the post of Southern Sudan president.

Kiir returned to Juba from Nairobi, Kenya, on Wednesday where he participated in the 14th IGAD Summit before proceeding to Western Bahr el Ghazal.

He is expected to visit a number of Southern Sudan states this week during his campaign for the elections.

Bashir was in Aweil, Northern Bahr el Ghazal state early this week where he reportedly secured the support of the Caretaker governor of the state who called on the citizens to vote for him [Bashir] in the presidential race.

Last week he also toured the three states of Greater Equatoria, namely Central, Eastern and Western Equatoria states and expected to visit a number of other states of Greater Bahr el-Ghazal this week.

(Sudan Tribune)

[John Ashworth]

Bashir promises more railway construction in South Sudan

See picture

Friday 12 March 2010

March 11, 2010 (WAU) – President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir and First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Thursday inaugurated a rehabilitated railway line in Western Bahr El-Ghazal state and promised to extend the transportation network farther.

The railway line opened today with a length of 446 kilometres running from Kordofan into Wau. The completion of this stage of renovation follows the landmark arrival of a train from Babanousa into Aweil on September 25, 2009.

In the conclusion of his speech delivered at a mass rally held in Wau stadium, President Bashir during promised more railway connections in Sudan extending from Wau to Rumbek, Juba and Uganda. He said that he had agreed with Uganda and Kenyan on business deals to empower the country’s economy.

This project cost $51 million and was funded largely by the Unity Support Fund, which was established by presidential decree on June 15, 2008 as a means to "make unity attractive" ahead of the 2011 referendum on South Sudan’s independence. International donors were also involved with some funding administered by the World Bank.

The railway had functioned during the last civil war when it was used to supply government garrison towns. But the line was targeted by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army’s in offensives against strongholds in Bahr El-Ghazal. The railway has not operated since 1991 when SPLA decided to break the line, said James Deng Dimo, Western Bahr El-Ghazal SPLM secretariat spokesman.

The two visiting politicians today, Bashir and Kiir, did not appear to agree about why the line had been disabled. Kiir recalled that the railway had been delivering military hardware to empower government army forces in South Sudan. By contrast, Bashir recalled that during the war period the railway was used for delivering services to people in South Sudan as well as agricultural and construction materials.

State caretaker Governor Efisio Kon Uguak said that it was not a day for political divisiveness but one to mark the first stage of implementation of the north-south peace deal by the national government and the government of Southern Sudan. Uguak also added that the arrival of this railway will reduce high prices of goods in Wau and will boost local trade.

President Al-Bashir likewise told crowd that the first train is loaded with food materials for southern and western Bahr El-Ghazal, which will help reduce prices. Also, he called for holding free and fair elections and voiced support for implementing the 2005 peace deal.

Salva Kiir arrived yesterday at 4:00 p.m. after a direct journey from the Kenyan capital, where he was attending an assembly of the seven-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development. Bashir arrived somewhat later, at 5 p.m., after a trip from Rumbek through Kuacjok and Tonj. He has been touring southern towns as part of his campaign for the election in April.

With the occasion concluded, President Bashir travelled to Raga County where he will be received by County Commissioner Hon. Lauic Romadhan. Kiir has gone to the Southern Sudanese capital at Juba.

Reporting by Manyang Mayom in Wau.

(Sudan Tribune)

[John Ashworth]

New railway links north and south Sudan

Fri Mar 12, 2010 6:01am GMT

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - Sudan on Thursday inaugurated a railway linking the north and south for the first time since decades of civil war ripped Africa's largest country apart.

Officials said the railway will provide a crucial economic link and lower commercial transportation costs.

The 446 km (277 mile) railway was originally built in the 1960s and will re-connect the town of Babanusa in central Sudan to Wau town, deep in the war-ravaged south.

"It will be the lifeline of the area, the cheapest way to bring in goods including from Port Sudan," said Mohammed Bashir, the engineer in charge of the project.

Two million people died, mostly in the south, during the civil war that ended with a peace deal in 2005. It gave the south a semi-autonomous government and a 50 percent share of oil revenues from southern wells.

Relations between the north and south remained troubled, with fighting erupting at least three times. It is widely expected that the south will choose to separate from northern Sudan in a January vote on independence.

There are a few, poor roads between the south and the north but they become almost impassable during the long rainy season, said Nhial Bol, Director General of Railways in the semi-autonomous south's transport ministry.

He said restarting the rail link was delayed by arguments over whether the north or south should fund the project.

The railway was paid for by the World Bank-administered Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF). Two-thirds of the $46 million cost was provided by the Sudanese government and the rest footed by international donors, Bashir said.

Bol said commercial trains will begin running soon once the ticketing system is organised. He said a tender had recently been released looking for a company to assess the feasibility of extending the railway from Wau through three other southern towns including Juba and then to northern Uganda.

© Thomson Reuters 2010

[John Ashworth]

SUDAN: Terror train turns the corner

WAU, 22 March 2010 (IRIN) - During wartime, trains heading south to this former garrison town used to deliver violence and terror; now they are bringing lower prices.

The first two trains in about a decade arrived in the southern city of Wau in March 2010, one with goods and the other with maintenance crews and supplies, Sudan Railways official Al Haji Maktoub told IRIN.

The central government paid US$35m towards a $46 million renovation; the remainder was funded by donors through a World Bank-managed national trust fund.

"One sack of sugar cost 155 [Sudanese pounds, $69.50]. When that train arrived it went to 80 [$35.90]," said John Arop, an NGO manager based in Wau. Soft drinks such as Coca-Cola and Fanta halved in price from 2 SDG (90 cents) to 1 SDG (45 cents), he said. The first cargo train also carried sugar, cement and sorghum.

Stalls in a market opposite the renovated train station are being constructed and repaired in anticipation of a boom. In the past, timber, honey, coffee and tea were sent north from Wau, but the first of planned weekly services returned empty.

Potential

Rail transport can dramatically cut prices because delivery trucks face multiple roadblocks and taxation, Arop explained, although its potential to cut the cost of humanitarian operations such as food aid distribution had yet to be assessed, said officials. Were passenger services to resume, it could make it much easier for Southerners to travel to and from Khartoum or Darfur, according to an international observer.

However, the railway, completed in 1961, had a dark side. It was used to resupply Wau during the long civil war, when the town was a heavily militarized outpost of the central government surrounded by areas occupied by the then rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

During the conflict, the SPLA mounted ambushes on the railways. In response, trains were accompanied by pro-government militia on horseback, known as Murahaliin, and sometimes the paramilitary Popular Defence Forces (PDF). Villages were looted and razed, according to human rights reports.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan, in October 1995, reported "a consistent pattern of abduction of women and children from Bahr al Ghazal province by the government army, PDF troops, government-armed militias, as well as mujahidin accompanying them during incursions and raids conducted from train convoys guarded by the military proceeding to Wau. In several instances, United Nations relief trains distributing food in the area during stopovers have been followed a few weeks later by military convoys; people who approach the militarily-guarded trains anticipating the distribution of food became easy victims for the captors."

By the mid-1990s the areas flanking the track were largely depopulated by the punitive militia raids. "Everybody was running away," Arop said. By the turn of the century, the SPLA had ripped up significant stretches of track and the line fell into disuse.

The militia raids were also one of the ways in which Southern women and children were abducted and taken to northern Sudan in conditions that often amounted to slavery, according to human rights groups. More than 11,000 people were abducted from the wider area, according to research by the Rift Valley Institute [http://www.riftvalley.net/].

However, one international official observed that while in the 1990s the train was an "instrument of terror", it now seemed to be an "election gimmick". Elections [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88167] are due to be held in April, even though opposition parties are calling for a postponement.

New beginnings

The reopening of the line linking Wau, the capital of Western Bahr el Ghazal state in the south, to Darfur and Khartoum through Babanusa, was marked by a rally at which Sudan President Omar el Bashir and Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir both spoke.

Railway police officer David Gabriel Makwer, one of three officers in the Southern Sudan railway police, speaking from the shade of a tree at Wau station, said most of the town came to the 11 March event and the mood was "very positive", with music and celebrations on the street and in local media.

The feel-good factor took on obvious political overtones at the inauguration event in Wau. Arop said the symbolic and economic impact of the railway's reopening might have "influenced people's thinking" regarding politics and north-south unity, but coming so close to the end of the interim period, it was "too late".

[John Ashworth]

SUDAN’S NORTH-SOUTH RAILWAY RESTORED

Posted on 22 March 2010 by Railways Africa Editor

The 446km railway linking Babanusa in central Sudan to Wåu in the south has been reopened – the first time it has operated since the civil war started. The rehabilitation was paid for by the World Bank-administered multi-donor trust fund (MDTF). Two-thirds of the cost ($US46 million) was provided by the Sudanese government and the rest footed by international donors. The line was opened originally in the 1960s.

According to Reuters, two million people died – mostly in the south – during the civil war. It ended with a peace deal in 2005, giving the south a semi-autonomous government and a 50% share of oil revenues from southern wells. “Relations between the north and south remained troubled, with fighting erupting at least three times. It is widely expected that the south will choose to separate from northern Sudan in a vote on independence.”

Director-general of railways in the semi-autonomous south’s transport ministry Nhial Bol told Reuters that the few, poor roads linking the south and north become almost impassable during the long rainy season. Thus the revived railway will mean a great deal economically to the region. Passenger trains are to begin running once a ticketing system is organised.

According to Boi, the feasibility of extending the railway from WÃ¥u to northern Uganda through Juba and two other southern towns is to be investigated.

[John Ashworth]

Page last updated at 11:12 GMT, Saturday, 10 April 2010 12:12 UK

South Sudan gets back on track

By Lucy Fleming
BBC News, Aweil


The rumbling of the railway from the north which for years ignited fear in rural villages of southern Sudan is now being heard as a signal of the peace.

"When the train used to come, there was nothing good it brought to us - only soldiers who came to raid our cattle and kill people," Paul Natale, administrative head of Aweil town, told the BBC.

"Now the train will be coming with goods that will be cheaper. It will improve the life of the people," he says.

His office is off the main dusty thoroughfare in the former garrison town - once a base for the northern army and Arab Murahaleen militia, who also used the train to carry southerners back north as slaves.

It is now teeming with traders and the many people who have returned home to rebuild their lives since 2005.

The trains from Khartoum were halted towards the end of the two-decade north-south conflict - the tracks, like much of the south, in a state of disrepair.

The $46m (£30m) rail refurbishment - reconnecting the northern capital with Wau, 150km (95 miles) south of Aweil - is part of efforts to rebuild one of the least developed areas of the world.

And ahead of Sunday's elections, there has been a big push to show that the dividends of peace can be delivered.

Mr Natale - who is also standing as local MP for the ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement which now runs Southern Sudan - points out proudly that the town got electricity for the first time in March.

And while the town may not have tarmac, the roads built since 2005 connecting Aweil to the north have allowed the economy to grow.

"My business is doing very well," says Mohamed Kathar Abdal Hamid, who has run a timber and hardware store in Aweil market since 2006.

"But everything except the mahogany timber comes from Khartoum by truck, so the goods are expensive," he says.

"So I am hopeful that with the train, prices will come down."

Good neighbours?

Tea seller Madilena Dut, who says Aweil's population has kept on growing since her arrival in 2005, agrees.

"I make between 10 Sudanese pounds ($2.20) and 20 Sudanese pounds a day on a slow day. If sugar and other products were cheaper it would be better and busier for me," she says

It is not only returnees looking for business opportunities in Aweil, where clever marketing sees restaurants called BBC and BBC 2 doing a good trade.

Twenty-eight-year old Ahmed Ishad Ibrahim from Darfur set up his New Sudan stationers next to the Mandela Book Shop last year.

"I came here because Aweil is growing bigger and bigger," he says

"And the people are peaceful," he adds.

His joy about the arrival of the railway is only tempered by the thought of the south voting to secede from the north in the referendum due next January.

"I will be very sad and I think it will affect our trade," he says.

As he talks Marko Mayol Maduok Mayol, a politician standing as an independent for a local seat, pops in to photocopy some more campaign leaflets.

He thinks a possible separation would not hit trade too much.

"When the people of Southern Sudan decide to separate, we are still neighbours," he says.

"The trade facilities will be ok because the north and south will be connected by the road and train."

Rich quick?

But another customer, civil servant Angelo Deng Akol, is more circumspect.

"If the country is split into two peacefully, the railway will be useful in connection, but if the country is split in violence then the railway will be very useless to us," he says.

For Dinka trader Angelo Malou Angara Dut the region's future is positive.

He maintains if the split does come Aweil could easily rely on Southern Sudan's new neighbours such as Kenya and Uganda instead of Khartoum.

"We have the East African road now, it won't be a problem," he says.

A former rebel soldier, he left the southern army last year to set up a shop selling soft drinks and mobile phones as he was being paid so little.

His stall now allows him to pay for his five children to go to school in neighbouring Kenya.

He also charges mobile phones for a small fee and has a laptop for people to check their emails - though his electricity comes from a market generator, not the new power lines.

"They are far from here, near the government buildings," he explains.

But he sees all these challenges as an opportunity.

"If you have a good mind here, you will become rich," he says. "And I am very happy about the train as I will make a lot of business."