Category: Voice of America

Sudan: Blue Nile State weighs its future – Voice of America

Sudan’s Blue Nile State did not take part in the just completed independence referendum in Southern Sudan. Technically part of the north, its sympathies often sided with the south during the long civil war. Now, its residents are wondering what their relationship with the Khartoum government will be if the south breaks away. “Blue Nile State is sort of a border land on the north-south border. It’s actually further south geographically than Upper Nile (State), which is nearby…. During the war it was one of the most heavily contested areas. The people are mainly Muslim like the rest of the north of Sudan, which Blue Nile State is politically a part of and going to be part of even if the south does secede, which seems almost certain.”

Bad cops, mean streets – Sunday Tribune/VoA/RTÉ World Report

FREETOWN – “The police stop us all the time. Sometimes they try to take money from us, sometimes they threaten to arrest us. But the usual trick is to check our handbags. They plant some drugs, then tell us to come with them to the station. The only way to get out is have sex with the policeman, otherwise we go to jail.” Just 20 years old, Maryama* has lived on the ramshackle streets of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, for eight years. Her father died when she was 10 – possibly from HIV-AIDS, although nobody knows for sure – leaving her mother unable to bring up their three children. This was at the height of Sierra Leone’s civil war, infamous for anti-government rebels who hacked off arms and hands to deter civilians from voting in elections.