Sudan Travel Update:

                                               (Picture - Village in Nuba Mountains - Sudan)

As South Sudan gears up for independence from the north next month mounting tensions between north and south over the still disputed oil rich region of Abyei have recently boiled over into heavy clashes. The fighting began last month when northern troops and ethnic Misseriya Arab cattle herders moved into the region. The fighting has forced around 30,000 Ngok Dinka to flee their homes and the UN estimates that around 15-20% of homes in Abyei have been razed to the ground.

This unrest now appears to have spread north into the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, which is an area that I highlighted in the Sudan chapter of the current Lonely Planet Africa guide as a highlight of Sudanese travel. At the weekend a police station in Kadugli, the regional capital, was raided and weapons stolen. Some hours later a gunfight erupted in a nearby village. Whilst tensions between the two sides remain high I’d advise visitors to Sudan to keep away from the Nuba mountains area (and, were you somehow given permission to visit, anywhere near the border of the north and south.