According to a February 19th article in The New York Times, “…35 million people worldwide are fleeing war or persecution. The last time the number was this high,

World War II was raging” (A18). An estimated 4.5 million of these unfortunate souls originate from the African country of Sudan (“Oil in Sudan – Deteriorating Human Rights”).

The true magnitude of the plight of the Sudanese refugee will never fully translate to ink and paper. That being said; in the following I will attempt to provide a better understanding of the situation through a brief history of the civil war, causes for the conflict, including the involvement of the oil industry, examples of the refugees’ hardships, and a summary of what is happening today with Sudanese refugees.

Sudan has been embroiled in a seeming

The full history behind the split-up of Sudan into two warring sides is an extremely complicated web of events worthy of an encyclopedia all its’ own. What comes next is a summary of the debacle.

Australia’s sudden switching of sides on their refugee stance is perhaps the most disheartening for Sudanese people. The Aussie’s Prime Minister, John Howard, is a member of the center-right liberal party and played to his followers by sending many refugees to neighboring countries and then creating staunch asylum laws that prevented them from returning. Campaigners for Howard’s opposition claimed that many refugee children’s lives were lost when they were tossed overboard, from refugee boats, to their death. (“Tougher Policies on Refugees, A 18).

Sudan adopted its’ first constitution in 1973 (“Sudan”). This was followed by a ten-year period of relative peace that lasted until 1983 (“Oil in Sudan – Deteriorating Human Rights”) The war then raged on, coming to a boiling point in 1987, marked by over 320,000 southern Sudanese refugees fleeing to nearby Uganda (Nduru, Moyiaga).

The southern Sudanese people’s response to the Islamic law being imposed on them was the creation of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA. The SPLA was created in 1983, and is led by John Garang and is still defending the Christian people of Sudan to this day (“God, Oil and Country – Changing the Logic of War in Sudan”). They fight for the independence of southern Sudan from their northern, Islamic neighbors. The NIF and SPLA are at the media forefront of the civil war, but it is the small militias that are involved in the majority of the actual face to face fighting that goes on “(“God, Oil and Country – Changing the Logic of War in Sudan”). These militias are responsible for the bloodiest and most gruesome battles. They often switch sides and are involved in a number of different interests.

Sudanese refugees received some international spotlight when the case of the “Lost Boys of the Sudan” was made into a critically acclaimed documentary film. The film chronicled the lives of a group of Sudanese refugees that survived a rigorous journey across harsh African terrain in order to eventually be rescued and flown to American soil. In the late 1980’s 17,000 Sudan children were forced to flee their villages because of a north-Sudan led genocide. Along the journey 7,000 of the boys passed away due to such hazards as Muslim bullets, lions, crocodiles and starvation. In 2001, 3,600 of the boys were flown to the United States for what the media hyped up as a supposedly better life. The documentary film chronicles these young men’s struggles to get ahead in the U.S. and shows viewers that everything is not as “rosy” as the media portrayed things to be when the boys first arrived. (NYTIMES FIX ME).

The future is not a bright one for the Sudanese refugee. As was before mentioned, September 11th security issues have made the long time dream of these people, relocating to the US, a difficult and unlikely one. A recent development stalled US driven peace talks in the Sudan. There was a helicopter gunship attack on a United Nations food distribution center which murdered 26 civilians, the majority of whom were women and children. “The United States Department announced on February 21, 2002 that it was suspending its efforts to mediate peace in Sudan because of the Government of Sudan’s recent helicopter …attack…” (“Government of Sudan named Co-D

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