UNISFA’s innovation: The Amiet common market in Abyei

Abyei, a disputed territory between Sudan and South Sudan, has a settled population of the Ngok Dinka, largely owing affiliation to South Sudan, and a pastoral presence of the Misseriya, a nomadic community from West Kordofan in Sudan.^[i] When the referendum was due in southern Sudan in 2011, the referendum mandated by the Abyei Protocol^[ii] to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the Sudanese civil war was to also be conducted. However, disagreement over who could count as a ‘resident’ led to its non-implementation then. No referendum has been done ever since asking the ‘residents’ as to which country they wished to join – Sudan or South Sudan. Consequently, the Abyei dispute simmer, with the peacekeeping mission, UNISFA^[iii] - intended as an ‘interim’ one - continuing in place for maintaining the peace as agreed^[iv] between the two countries just prior to South Sudan gaining independence.

Typical of protracted peacekeeping missions, peace in Abyei has had a chequered trajectory over the last 15 years. UNISFA originally comprised Ethiopian troops and initially managed to get the two sides to the table as per their June 2011 Agreement.^[v] However, disagreements did not allow the joint supervisory mechanisms to come to fruition. With South Sudan dissolving into a civil war in late 2013, there was no movement on the national political level.

Security was vitiated by a particularly grievous incident in which the Misseriya killed the paramount chief of the Ngok Dinka in 2013.^[vi] The usual annual migration of the Misseriya southwards to access waterbodies and grazing areas in Ngok Dinka settled areas was discontinued. The peacekeepers maintained a ‘zone of separation’ between the two communities. This stand-off increased the premium on the resources of UNISFA for peacemaking and peacebuilding. The question UNISFA was faced with was how to get the two sides to engage with each other at the local level once again.

The civil affairs-equivalent section of UNISFA – the community liaison office (CLO)^[vii] – reached out to both sides through 2015 for resuming contacts. The Misseriya clans on the three migratory corridors and the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms were engaged with. The South Sudanese civil war had impacted the economic situation in Abyei, resulting in the Ngok Dinka dependence on the Sudan side. As a result, ad-hoc markets were set up along the three corridors. The UN liaison officers prevailed on the two sides to institutionalise their economic inter-dependence in creating a common, jointly managed market. The first meeting to this end was hosted under a tree at Noong in March 2016.

The CLO capitalized on this opening and sited the common market at Amiet on a clear piece of ground, recced with an eye to see that it did not get waterlogged through the June-October rainy season. Under-tree meetings in June-July 2016 set up the common market to be managed by a joint peace committee with CLO assistance and secured by UNISFA troops.^[viii] The common market slowly grew as a trading hub for the wider region.

Paradoxically, while UNISFA thus created a peace constituency in the two communities of stakeholders in the common market, it also created a ‘protection of civilians’ (POC) hotspot in light of the glaring potential target the sprawling market presented spoilers and negative forces. Consequently, UNISFA invested strategically in taking forward its innovative peacebuilding measure. It facilitated peacemaking at that local, grassroots peace process bringing the traditional chiefs in periodic meetings to oversee, inter-alia, the common market; while its peacekeepers secured Amiet. Thus, Abyei became an oasis of peace as the two countries dissolved successively into civil wars (South Sudan 2013-18; Sudan 2023-to date).

The CLO organized weekly meetings of the peace committee and quarterly meetings of the traditional chiefs. The issues addressed included the criminal activity surrounding the common market; the creation and operation of a joint community protection committee; the expansion and sanitation of the market and its environs; adjudicating in the traditional courts on commercial disputes etc. Peacekeepers maintained vigil not only on the market but also its routes of access from criminality and responded to fire accidents. Once the Ethiopians were substituted in UNISFA by a multinational force, securing the common market devolved on peacekeepers from Sector North.

A particularly stressful period was the outbreak of Covid across the world. Through the lockdown, CLO continued its field trips to ensure that the information on Covid and its precautions was understood by all, and also to regulate its spread. The common market had grown from some 1000 to about 5000 people. Occasionally reports of all manner of organized crime are received, from smuggling to weapons proliferation. Often cases of affray that can potentially escalate witness the CLO along with the peacekeeping company commander intervening in a mediatory capacity. UNISFA provided watchtowers and through QIPs and programmatic funds built a detention center, a meeting hall, solar lights and water pumps. Assistance through the joint program of the two UN country teams in Juba and Khartoum is also availed of. UNISFA also interfaces with NGOs providing services in the common market. Since humanitarian resources stand attenuated these days, the common market itself acts as a livelihood provider and gets to be a self-reliant peacebuilding mainstay.

The Amiet common market has lately expanded to become a veritable township of some 10000 comprising the Misseriya, Ngok Dinka, an assortment of Darfuris and displaced Nuer from nearby Unity State. There are also IDPs from the ongoing Sudanese civil war adding to the ethnic mix. Often the effects of the myriad ethnic conflicts in the vicinity between Ngok, Misseriya, Nuer and Twic, play out in tension in the common market. Armed actors from the civil war to the north have made an appearance to control the trade. Likewise, to its south, the Ngok Dinka local administration controls the area with South Sudanese security presence.^[ix]

The Mission has successfully capitalized on the common market as a key peacebuilding innovation.^[x] Amiet is a model for the joint management of the ten crossing points across the yet-to-be demarcated common border. As with peacekeeping in general, UNISFA is already facing a premature call to draw down, making it a victim of its own success. Abyei must be viewed in relation to the surrounding instability. UN Security Council dynamics being such and the UN funding situation being adverse, UNISFA’s mandate extension is subject to benchmarks.^[xi] Given their internal political preoccupations, both sides rely on UNISFA to remain in place. For its part, UNISFA, though not structured as a multidimensional mission, performs above its weight, making it one of the successes of UN peacekeeping at a time when peacekeeping as a key mechanism available to the Security Council is itself under cloud. Its success could be facilitated, and its model replicated elsewhere.

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^[i] For context, see https://www.accord.org.za/publication/abyei/.

^[ii] Available at https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/default/files/document/files/2024/05/sd040526protocol20between20gos20and20splm20on20the20resolution20of20abyei20conflict.pdf.

^[iii] For details, see https://unisfa.unmissions.org/en.

^[iv] Text at https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/agreement-between-government-republic-sudan-and-sudan-peoples-liberation-movement.

^[v] For mandate, see https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/1990(2011).

^[vi] Details at https://docs.un.org/en/S/2013/294.

^[vii] For CLO functions, see https://unisfa.unmissions.org/en/unisfa-community-liaison-office.

^[viii] See for description of the period https://docs.un.org/en/S/2016/864.

^[ix] For the latest situation, see https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/abyei-between-two-conflicts-suspended-peace.

^[x] For visuals of Amiet, see editions of the UNISFA newsletter https://unisfa.unmissions.org/en/document-library/blue-sentinels-unisfa-newsletter-edition-40.

^[xi] For benchmarks, see https://docs.un.org/en/s/res/2802(2025).