Sudan

The central African area's founding leader John Garang said the area's women were ‘the poorest of the poor and the most marginalised of the marginalised.'

But as South Sudan gets ready to become an official independent nation, on July 9, things are changing for women.

Since 2005, when North and South Sudan signed a peace deal that put a stop to decades of civil war, the tide has been turning.

The Sudanese Army and its allied militias have gone on an unsparing rampage to crush rebel fighters in the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan, bombing thatch-roofed villages, executing elders, burning churches and pitching another region of the country into crisis, according to United Nations officials and villagers who have escaped.

The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has categorically denied allegations of misconduct against its peacekeepers in the country's war-stricken state of South Kordofan, and complained that the closure of airspace and restrictions on access are undermining its humanitarian operations there.

With UN peacekeepers accused of at least six rapes in Southern Kordofan in Sudan, what has the UN system done? So far, nothing.

Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky about the accusation, by former deputy governor of Southern Kordofan, on June 13. Nesirky responded about a different matter -- the UN abandoning a national staff member -- then moved on to other questions.

The Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA) unanimously voted on Tuesday to share the $44.9 million (102 million Sudanese Pounds - SDG) Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) to all 170 members of parliament ending long debates on which members qualified for the funds.

As the violence between north and south Sudan escalates, leaders from across the continent will meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for a special summit of the African Union (AU). The meeting, to be held tomorrow, will focus on Abyei.

Negotiations between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Southern Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit will be mediated by former South-African President Thabo Mbeki.

Sudan's invasion of the town Abeyi; sexual harassment in Egypt; the impact of Egypt's uprising on migrants; the detention of Syrian blogger Amina Arraf; Western Sahara; and the opening of the a centre for women in Eastern Congo, the City of Joy, are among the topics featured in this week's review of African blogs, by Sokari Ekine.

Among the issues facing women in southern Sudan are high rates of poverty, illiteracy and maternal mortality. Bringing those numbers down by 2015 is the aim of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs.

A Sudanese genocide refugee relayed his story of escaping the massacre of his village during a speech on Wednesday, May 4, and called for students to support peace, rather than violence as a method of stopping genocide.

Senior officials from South Sudan's governing party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), on Thursday, called on traditional leaders to abhor violence and support traditional norms and values which advocates peace and reconciliation.