There is No Jur Chol Tribe but Luo Tribe in Western Bahr el Ghazal State: Speaker

[Elisabeth Janaina]

There is No Jur Chol Tribe but Luo Tribe in Western Bahr el Ghazal
State: Speaker


The Western Bahr el Ghazal State Legislative Assembly Speaker Andrea
Mayar Acho has strongly denounced and warned those calling the ethic
Luo tribe of Western Bahr el Ghazal state as Jur Chol.


27 April 2013





Western Bahr el Ghazal State Legislative Assembly Speaker Andrea Mayar
Acho. [James Deng Dimo]

By James Deng Dimo

WAU, 26 April 2013 [Gurtong] - “Those people who are nicknaming us as
Jur Chol must stop it, and should identify as by our main origin tribe
which is Luo,” said Acho who is from Luo tribe.

“The name Jur Chol only remains on us as a nickname which is imposed
on us by Dinka and it is an acceptable to call the main tribe of Luo
in the Country today,” he said.

The issue of Jur Chol has been an issue which is facing Luo tribe and
making it difficult when they are accessing their National IDs Card in
South Sudan with the national ministry of interior within Wau and
Juba.

Many Luo tribes had been optioning to leave without processing their
IDs when it happen that they are called Jur Chol but some said they
are forced by the administration to accept the tribe name Jur Chol.

Some Luo communities in the country had been throughout complaining
that if other local tribes in the country failed to recognize them,
then the government of South Sudan which is responsible for issuing
the national documents should not behave like them.

“We had been finding it difficult along our ways to get national IDs
in the name of our tribe just like other tribes in the country,” he
said.

Luo in Africa continent are several ethno linguistically related ethic
groups in Africa that inhabited an area ranging from South Sudan,
Western Bahr el Ghazal state Wau with the presence of some in Western
Kenya, Northern Uganda, Ethiopia, DRC Congo and in Mara region of
Tanzania which similar spoken language known as Dholuo.

Luo group include the Shilluk, Anuak, Acholi, Lango, Alur, Padhola,
Joluo (Kenyan and Tanzanian Luo), Bor, and Kumam.

The Jo-luo and their language Dholuo are also known as the "Luo
proper", being eponymous of the larger group in Africa which current
US president Barrack Obama and other leading political figures like
Rally Odinga of Kenya and former Sudan Bishop Ireneu Dut Wein from Wau
come from. The level of historical separation between these groups is
estimated at about eight centuries.

Dispersion from the Nilotic homeland in South Sudan of Western Bahr el
Ghazal state was presumably triggered by the turmoil of the Muslim
conquest of Sudan, and the migration of the individual groups over the
last few centuries that included their historical grandfathers
background can to some extent be traced in the respective tribes' oral
history.

Numbering between 100,000 to 900,000, the Jo-Luo are found in Wau, and
Aweil districts.

Their main settlement towns are Wau, Mapel, Udici, Alel, Thony,
Barmayen, Kwajieno, Roc-Roc dong, Kangi, Kayongo, Atido and Umbili.


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