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Melut Maluth | |
|---|---|
Town | |
  Melut Location in South Sudan | |
| Coordinates: 10°26′26″N32°12′06″E / 10.440419°N 32.201529°E | |
| Country |  South Sudan |
| State | Upper Nile |
| County | Melut County |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (CAT) |
Melut is a community in the Upper Nile state of South Sudan, headquarters of Melut County.
The town is on the east bank of the White Nile, just below the point where the Adar River enters the Nile. [1] The region is one of wide, flat and low lying plains with black cotton soils, covered by Savannah grasslands and acacia trees. The River Nile and its small seasonal tributaries are the main sources of drinking water, fishing grounds and water for cattle, particularly in the dry season. The river Nile is also the main transportation route. The largest communities in the county are Dinka, Shilluk, Burun, Fur, Nubian and Nuer people. Most people relay on agro-pastoralism for a living, and engage in small scale trading. [2]
Melut gives its name to the Melut Basin. Chevron discovered a major oil field in this basin in 1981. [1] In October 1996 the GPC consortium drilled and reopened Chevron's wells and built an all-weather road connecting the Adar oilfield to Melut. [3]
Gideon Theological College was jointly founded by the Sudan Interior Church (SIC) and the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) in 1976 but is run as an inter-denominational school. The College moved north to Khartoum in 1988 due to heavy fighting in the area Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005) and then moved back to Melut in 2007. The compound had been used and misused by the army during the war and required extensive rebuilding. [4] In November 2007 Medair moved its Primary Health Care Center at Melut into a new building. Until then the Center, the only source of health care in the town, had been operating out of tents. [5]
On 10 November 2010, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) component of the Joint Integrated Units opened fire on positions of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) component and the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in Melut, killing a teenage girl and wounding others. SAF attributed this violation of the ceasefire to drunken soldiers. To avoid any risk of escalation, the SPLA did not respond. [6]
The Second Sudanese Civil War was a conflict from 1983 to 2005 between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army. It was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War of 1955 to 1972. Although it originated in southern Sudan, the civil war spread to the Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile. It lasted for almost 22 years and is one of the longest civil wars on record. The war resulted in the independence of South Sudan 6 years after the war ended.
Malakal is a city in South Sudan, serving as the capital of Upper Nile State, South Sudan, along the White Nile River. It also serves as the headquarter of Malakal county and it used to be the headquarter of Upper Nile Region from 1970s to late 1990s.
Heglig, or Panthou, is a small town at the border between the South Kordofan state of Sudan and the Unity State in South Sudan. The entirety of Heglig is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, but administered by Sudan. The area was contested during the Sudanese Civil War. In mid-April 2012, South Sudan's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) captured the Heglig oil field from Sudan. Sudan took it back at the Second Battle of Heglig ten days later.
The Melut Basin is a rift basin in South Sudan, extending into Ethiopia, where it is called the Gambella basin. Melut is situated in the Upper Nile and Jonglei, south of the capital of Sudan, Khartoum and east of the river Nile. Some parts of the Melut contain several known hydrocarbon accumulations, although oil exploration, as elsewhere in Sudan and South Sudan, has been hindered by instability and conflict. The largest oil field in the Basin is the Great Palogue Field in South Sudan, with estimated reserves of 900 million barrels. The Melut oil export pipeline travels 1,380 km from Palogue to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, and has been on stream since June 2006.
The South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF), formerly the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is the army of the Republic of South Sudan. The SPLA was founded as a guerrilla movement against the government of Sudan in 1983 and was a key participant of the Second Sudanese Civil War, led by John Garang. After Garang's death in 2005, Salva Kiir was named the SPLA's new Commander-in-Chief. As of 2010, the SPLA was divided into divisions of 10,000–14,000 soldiers.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North, or SPLM–N, is a political party and militant organisation in the Republic of Sudan, based in the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. The group's armed forces are formally known as the Sudan People's Liberation Army–North or SPLA–N. As of 2017, its two factions, SPLM-N (Agar) and SPLM-N (al-Hilu) were engaged in fighting each other and against the government of Sudan, and as of 2023, the al-Hilu faction is fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), while the leader of the Agar faction was appointed into the military-run government.
Gabriel Gatwech Chan, more commonly known by the nickname Tang-Ginye or Tanginye meaning "long pipe", was a Nuer and a commander in various primarily Nuer rebel militias in South Sudan. General Tanginye led a southern border militia allied to the Khartoum government during Sudan's civil war. Members of the Sudanese armed forces loyal to Tanginye in Malakal clashed with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in 2006, killing about 150 people, and in 2009 in breach of the peace deal. In April 2011, clashes between his militia and the SPLA in the state of Jonglei killed at least 57 according to government officials. Shortly thereafter, Tanginye surrendered to SPLA forces and was placed under house arrest in Juba awaiting charges against him. During the South Sudanese Civil War, he allied with the SPLA-IO and later Lam Akol's militia, a Juba linked rebel group called the National Democratic Movement (NDM) and became its chief of staff. In January 2017 he visited a NDM-allied group, the Tiger Faction New Forces, in the Hamra area in the northern Upper Nile. In course of this visit, the Tigers were attacked by SPLM-IO-affiliated fighters belonging to the militia of John Uliny, and Tanginye was killed alongside most of the Tigers.
The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile was an armed conflict in the Sudanese states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N), a northern affiliate of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan. After some years of relative calm following the 2005 agreement which ended the second Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese government and SPLM rebels, fighting broke out again in the lead-up to South Sudan independence on 9 July 2011, starting in South Kordofan on 5 June and spreading to the neighboring Blue Nile state in September. SPLM-N, splitting from newly independent SPLM, took up arms against the inclusion of the two southern states in Sudan with no popular consultation and against the lack of democratic elections. The conflict is intertwined with the War in Darfur, since in November 2011 SPLM-N established a loose alliance with Darfuri rebels, called Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF).
The Adar River, known to the Dinka as the Yal, is a tributary of the White Nile in the state of Upper Nile, South Sudan. It flows north west from the Machar Marshes and enters the White Nile just upstream of the town of Melut.
Stephen Dhieu Dau Ayik is South Sudanese politician, banker by profession, and financial technocrat. He is a proven professional and held various cabinet positions in the Government of the Republic of South Sudan. He is a senior member of Sudan’s People Liberation Movement (SPLM) and had served in various cabinet positions. Stephen Dhieu Dau was the Minister of Finance and Planning until March 2018 in the RSS. He served as Minister of Petroleum and Mining and Minister of Commerce and Industry. Stephen Dhieu Dau is from Melut County, Upper Nile State, and belongs to the Nyiel section of the Padang Dinka ethnic group. In October 2022, President Salva Kiir appointed Stephen Dhieu Dau as the chairperson of the Board of Directors of the National Revenue Authority. In December 2022, He was appointed as a member of the SPLM Political Bureau.
Leer is a town in South Sudan. It is the capital of former Southern Liech State and Leer County. It is the most densely populated county in South Sudan.
Melut County is an administrative area in the Upper Nile State.
Gordon Kong Chuol is a former militia commander in South Sudan, who fought for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and later for the forces led by Riek Machar during the Second Sudanese Civil War.
The Adar oilfield, also known as the Adar Yale, Adar Yeil or Adaril field, is an oilfield situated in the Melut in South Sudan estimated to contain about 276 million barrels (43,900,000 m3) of oil. The Chevron Corporation discovered the Adar Yale field in 1981, shortly before the start of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). Soon after Chevron had suspended operations in 1984, Sudanese government troops began attacking civilian settlements in the area, burning the houses and driving the people away, and in the late 1990s, Nuer militias from Nasir helped the army in clearing away the people to make way for the roads and infrastructure of the oilfield.
Mayom is a community in Unity State of South Sudan to the west of Bentiu. It is the headquarters of Mayom County.
Tito Biel Chuor was a high-ranking commander in the South Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF) during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005).
Block 5A is an oil concession in South Sudan. After oil field development began during the Second Sudanese Civil War, Block 5A was the scene of extensive fighting as rival militias struggled for control. Out of an original population of 240,000, an estimated 12,000 were killed or died of starvation and 160,000 were displaced by force. Production started in 2006. There is evidence that the environmentally sensitive marshlands beside the Nile are becoming polluted.
Longechuk is a county in the Upper Nile, South Sudan and previously a county of Upper Nile State.
Operation Thunderbolt was the codename for a military offensive by the South Sudanese SPLA rebel group and its allies during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The operation aimed at conquering several towns in Western and Central Equatoria, most importantly Yei, which served as strongholds for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and helped the Sudanese government to supply its allies, the Ugandan insurgents of the WNBF and UNRF (II) based in Zaire. These pro-Sudanese forces were defeated and driven from Zaire by the SPLA and its allies, namely Uganda and the AFDL, in course of the First Congo War, thus allowing the SPLA launch Operation Thunderbolt from the Zairian side of the border. Covertly supported by expeditionary forces from Uganda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, the SPLA's offensive was a major success, with several SAF garrison towns falling to the South Sudanese rebels in a matter of days. Yei was encircled and put under siege on 11 March 1997. At the same time, a large group of WNBF fighters as well as SAF, FAZ, and ex-Rwandan Armed Forces soldiers was trying to escape from Zaire to Yei. The column was ambushed and destroyed by the SPLA, allowing it to capture Yei shortly afterward. Following this victory, the South Sudanese rebels continued their offensive until late April, capturing several other towns in Equatoria and preparing further anti-government campaigns.
The War of the Peters was a conflict primarily fought between the forces of Peter Par Jiek and Peter Gadet from June 2000 to August 2001 in Unity State, Sudan. Though both were leaders of local branches of larger rebel groups that were involved in the Second Sudanese Civil War, the confrontation between the two commanders was essentially a private war. As Par and Gadet battled each other, the Sudanese government exploited the inter-rebel conflict as part of a divide and rule strategy, aimed at weakening the rebellion at large and allowing for the extraction of valuable oil in Unity State. In the end, Gadet and Par reconciled when their respective superiors agreed to merge the SPDF and SPLA.