Kerubino Dies

On the 15th of September last Reuters Kenya reported the death of Sudanese rebel leader Kerubino Kwanyin Bol. The warlord who is thought to have fired the first shot in Sudan's 16- year civil war was reported, by family, to have died after being wounded in faction fighting. Kerubino was one of the founders of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) which since 1983 has been fighting the Islamist Khartoum government for political and religious freedoms for the mainly Christian and animist south. But, like other rebel commanders, he shifted his allegiances several times. For three years he held sway over his home region of northern Bahr el Ghazal with a terror campaign which culminated in last year's famine which killed an estimated 60,000 people.