In the southeastern corner of Sudan a little-known struggle has succeeded in depopulating an entire region. Blue Nile sits on the southern frontier of Sudan, where war has raged for more than 60 years. The fight is a continuation of the struggle that birthed the world's newest nation, an independent South Sudan, in 2011. Blue Nile holds great promise. It sits on a literal gold mine and the land is the most fertile in the country. But a lifetime of war has bought nothing but suffering. There is not yet a path to peace – all attempts have fizzled.
It’s also a humanitarian crisis that has been compounded by the evacuation of all international aid organisations. A spluttering peace process, is denying people desperately needed food aid; and explains how the economic lifeline of locally mined gold and gum arabic is smuggled north, to profit a government trying to crush the rebellion.
The notorious Janjaweed militia are being redeployed to Blue Nile as a paramilitary wing of the regular army.
http://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2016/06/21/forgotten-conflicts-blue-nile
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