More than 10,000 missing in Sudan slave trade

30 May 2003
More than 11,000 people have been abducted in Sudan for use in the slave trade over the past two decades, according to a report by UK and East Africa-based Rift Valley Institute. Some 10,000 of these people are still missing. The findings were reached from thousands of interviews in the worst-affected Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal province. Most of those captured were young men. 'Abduction and slavery are horrific - the important thing is that now we know what the facts are,' Rift Valley Institute co-director Jok Madut told the BBC's Network Africa. 'We know for certain who has been abducted, how many, where and when.' The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) welcomed the research and called on the Sudanese government and international organisations to use the data to address the problem. 'For the first time since 1983, the true extent of abductions has been documented,' said spokeswoman Joanna van Gerpen, saying that it made the search for the missing 'far more effective, far more meaningful and far more hopeful'.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell met the leader of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), John Garang, on 28 May and expressed confidence that an end to Sudan's two decades of civil war was in sight. 'We think the progress has been good so far,' said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. 'But it's going to take more effort and we're certainly willing to continue to put the effort into it, and we think the parties are too.' The note of optimism followed the end without progress of the latest round of peace talks in Kenya on 21 May (MEED 22:5:03).

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