The Ruweng are part of South Sudan's larger Padang fraternity found in both South Sudan and northern Sudan. Many have mistakenly claimed that the Ruweng Dinka is part of Padang. Padang consists of Dongjol, Ageer, Nyiel, Abeliang, Jok, Ruweng, Lual Ngok Abyei and Ngok Lual Yak and Luanyjang. Luannyjang, sometimes known as Luany Agwer Adel shares a similar name with Luach of Agwer Wieu in Korflus, Northern Jonglei. The two Luach, just like the Luach of Atuot, only share the name Luach but have not historical relation other than their larger Dinka identity.
The association of Ngok with Padang was a function of political fiction adopted in 1982 when Kokora politics became a dominant game in South Sudan. It is a mistake that is similar in character to the mistake that Aliab, Ciec, Gok and Atuot are part of Agaar.
Ngok is one of several branches of the Dinka people which consists of Malwal, Ngok, Agaar, Twic, Bor, Padang, Ciec, Aliab and Marbek). The Dinka is the largest Nilotic group in the world.
Location
Located in South Sudan's Ruweng State, the population of the Ruweng is estimated at 260,000. Ruweng State is bordered by Abyei in the west, Twic in the southwest, Nuer in the south, Shilluk in southeast and the Sudan (Nuba Mountains and Misseriya) from the east to northwest.
Language
Ruweng speak the Ruweng Padang Dinka dialect, a subdialect of the Padang dialect of the Dinka language.
Groups
While Ruweng had largely moved away from their Padang identity to establish their own separate identity as Ruweng, this is changing and many people, based on history and culture discerned from songs and oral history are increasingly retracing their Padang ROOT. THE Ruweng sometimes call themselves Panaruu, which is a short form of Pan-Ruweng.
The capital of Ruweng State is Pariang. The four major Ruweng groups are Kwel, Awet, Aloor and Paweny (which are found both in Ruweng State and Central Upper Nile State in South Sudan). In Ruweng State, the Ruweng people are divided into 18 chiefdoms. Ruweng of Panaruu are divided into two kwel and awet and together they have 12 subclans. The kwel subclans (wuut) are Kuocgoor, Agaany, Bibiok, Ngeer, Miorcigiu, Bugo Bol, Bugo Angau, Palei, and Tungdiak. The awet subclans are Aniek, Kuok, and Diar. Ruweng of Aloor (or biemnom) has six subclans: Amaal, Majuan, Thieyier, Ngongkiel, Manteng, and Abang.
The Ruweng section known as Paweny, located in the Atar County of Central Upper Nile State, left the mainstream Ruweng in 17th century, although they maintain contact with mainstream Ruweng. They have six subclans. Part of Paweny is still in Ruweng State today and has three subclan s: Buga e Bol, Tungdiak, and Palei.paweny main clans are Aniek that is the largest followed by jueny followed by thiony and finally buga
The Dinka people are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Mangalla-Bor to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and the Abyei Area of the Ngok Dinka in South Sudan.
Dinka is a Nilotic dialect cluster spoken by the Dinka people, a major ethnic group of South Sudan. There are several main varieties, such as Padang, Rek, Agaar, Ciec, Malual, Apaak, Aliab, Bor, Hol, Nyarweng, Twic East and Twic Mayardit, which are distinct enough to require separate literary standards. Jaang, Jieng or Muonyjieng is used as a general term to cover all Dinka languages. Recently Akutmɛ̈t Latueŋ Thuɔŋjäŋ has proposed a unified written grammar of Dinka.
The Messiria, also known as Misseriya Arabs, are a branch of the Baggara ethnic grouping of Arab tribes. Their language is primarily Sudanese Arabic, when Chadian Arabic is also spoken by a small number of them in Darfur. The numbers is varies, perhaps between 500,000 and 1 million in western Sudan, extending into eastern Chad. They are primarily nomadic cattle herders and their journeys are dependent upon the seasons of the year. The use of the term Baggara carries negative connotations as slave raiders, so they prefer to be called instead Messiria.
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Khorfulus County was a county in the former Eastern Nile of South Sudan. Khorfulus County is the Land of Dinka Padang that comprises Luach, Rut, Thoi and Paweny Dinka. These group of people are pastoralist and practice small scale farming. They border Shilluk to the North, Dinka Ngok to the East and Nuer to the South and West.
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Kuol Manyang is a South Sudanese politician. He is a member of the SPLM. He became governor of Jonglei state on 15 December 2007, following the first former governor, Philip Thon Leek from Dinka Bor, to curb cattle raiding and abduction of children in the region.
The Abyei Area is an area of 10,546 km2 or 4,072 sq mi on the border between South Sudan and Sudan that has been accorded "special administrative status" by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War. The capital of the Abyei Area is Abyei Town. Under the terms of the Abyei Protocol, the Abyei Area is considered, on an interim basis, to be simultaneously part of both the Republic of South Sudan and Republic of Sudan, effectively a condominium.
Sudanese nomadic conflicts are non-state conflicts between rival nomadic tribes taking place in the territory of Sudan and, since 2011, South Sudan. Conflict between nomadic tribes in Sudan is common, with fights breaking out over scarce resources, including grazing land, cattle and drinking water. Some of the tribes involved in these clashes have been the Messiria, Maalia, Rizeigat and Bani Hussein Arabic tribes inhabiting Darfur and West Kordofan, and the Dinka, Nuer and Murle African ethnic groups inhabiting South Sudan. Conflicts have been fueled by other major wars taking place in the same regions, in particular the Second Sudanese Civil War, the War in Darfur and the Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
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Kerubino Kuanyin Bol was a Sudanese rebel leader who was one of the founders of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and one of the leaders of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the Second Sudanese Civil War and was said to have fired the first shot in the war.
Ethnic violence in South Sudan has a long history among South Sudan's varied ethnic groups. South Sudan has 64 tribes with the largest being the Dinka, who constitute about 35% of the population and predominate in government. The second largest are the Nuers. Conflict is often aggravated among nomadic groups over the issue of cattle and grazing land and is part of the wider Sudanese nomadic conflicts.
Baliet is an administrative county in the Upper Nile State, South Sudan. The County headquarters is the town of Baliet, located on the north side of the Sobat River 20 km south east of Malakal, the capital city of Upper Nile State.
Ngok Jok(Lual Yak) is an African sub-tribe, within the Jiëŋ (Dinka) group. They are mainly found in Malakal, South Sudan and inhabit the land along the confluences of the Nile and Sobat rivers. It is believed that the sub-tribe numbers about 95,000. They are devoted ethnics and believe in Deŋdit as their provider. Some of Ngok sections are part of Bor Community and sections who identifies themselves as descendants of Ngok could still be traced!
The Ruweng Administrative Area is an administrative area in South Sudan. The area was known as Ruweng State between 2 October 2015 and 22 February 2020 when it was a state of South Sudan.
The Dinka–Nuer West Bank Peace & Reconciliation Conference of 1999 was held in what was then the Southern part of Sudan. It is commonly called the "Wunlit Peace Conference" after Wunlit, the village where it was held in eastern Tonj County in Bahr El Ghazal. The conference brought together Nuer from Western Upper Nile and Dinka from Tonj, Rumbek, and Yirol. It is the most prominent and comprehensively documented case of a people-to-people peace process in what is now the Republic of South Sudan.
James Tor Monybuny is a South Sudanese politician who has been the deputy governor of Upper Nile State since January 2021, and was the first governor of Central Upper Nile State from 2017-2019. Monybuny is from Baliet, and is a member of the Ngok Lual Yak section of the Padang Dinka. Earlier in his career, Monybuny was a pastor for the Presbyterian Church in South Sudan and the Baliet County commissioner.
Elections were held in Jonglei State on 10–15 April 2010 as part of the 2010 Sudanese general election, with voting for President of Sudan, National Assembly of Sudan, President of Southern Sudan, Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly, Governor of Jonglei State and the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly. The elections were the first in Sudan for over two decades, held in the aftermath of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Government of Sudan of Omar al-Bashir. The election was carried out in precarious security conditions, with ethnic conflicts prevalent in the state. The elections were won by the SPLM, with the exception of a handful of seats. Disputes over the election results led to the outbreak of two armed insurgencies.
Between February 2022 and April 2023, clashes broke out in the Abyei area of South Sudan between Twic Dinka militias against Ngok Dinka militias, regarding control of the border between Abyei and South Sudan's Twic County. The conflict ended temporarily following a ceasefire between the Twic Dinka and Ngok Dinka in May 2023. In September 2023, attacks flared up in the border area between Abyei and Twic County between Twic Dinka and Ngok Dinka youth, with several massacres against Ngok Dinka.
On November 19, 2023, Twic Dinka youth and soldiers from the 3rd Division of the South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF) attacked several villages along the border between Abyei and Twic County, killing over forty-seven people and injuring thirty-four others.
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