9 - Hausa and Fulbe on the Blue Nile: Land Conflicts between Farmers and Herders

Summary

Upon learning about a conflict between Hausa and Fulbe, the reader might feel transferred to the times of the ‘Fulani jihad’ in the early nineteenth century in what was later to become northern Nigeria. But indeed, we are talking about the Blue Nile area, more particularly the stretch of semi-arid land that the Blue Nile traverses after coming out of its gorge in the Ethiopian Highlands and pours into the Sudan. We and others have summarized how West Africans have come to the Sudan elsewhere (Abu-Manga & Miller 2005, Delmet 2000, Feyissa & Schlee 2009, Schlee 2000, 2009). Here it must suffice to say that many West African groups, often forming co-resident village communities or nomadic hamlets and preserving their different languages, are scattered all over Sudan. This corresponds to a general pattern: people tend to live within their ethnic groups, but increasingly often outside their home area (dār in Arabic). Also, people from Darfur (Fur, Zaghawa, Masalit1) can be found in largely ethnically homogeneous settlements in Eastern Sudan, and such examples could be multiplied.

This chapter focuses on the issue of farmer/herder conflicts about land use in the area adjacent to the reservoir of Roseires2 dam south of Damazin. The Hausa farmers living in Rigeiba town and the group of cAliwan Woyla3 Fulbe – with a pastoral background – better known as Farig4 Malakal constitute the focal point of this study. We thereby attempt to provide a chronological account of events to explain how a land conflict between the two groups started and developed through time. We venture from a situation in which the territory at first enabled various livelihoods and was open to in-migration, to one where new claims to land made access gradually become problematic. In doing so, we aim to relate the evolution of the conflict to socio-economic, environmental and territorial transformations at the local and national level, such as the impacts of sprawling mechanized farming schemes and the migratory movements of people displaced by the civil war. The study also seeks to elaborate how other groups are incorporated into the conflict. After discussing the context which contributed to a climate of violence, special attention will be paid to events in 2009, a year of scarce forage and water due to poor rainfall, in which the conflict between the two groups escalated, becoming entirely violent.