SUMMARY
Gambella region, situated in south-western Ethiopia on the border with Sudan, is home to 220 000 people. Five ethnic groups consider themselves to be indigenous to the region: the Anuak (or Anwaa), Nuer, Majangir, Opo, and Komo. There is a long history of intermittent conflict between the two main ethnic groups: the Anuak and the Nuer. Traditionally the cause has been competition over scarce resources and the fact that the two groups pursue different livelihoods (The Anuak are agriculturalists and the Nuer pastoralists) has exacerbated the conflict. Ethnic tensions have amplified over several decades as the competition over the resources has become fiercer with an influx of new people to the region. Until the 1980s, the Anuak was by far the largest ethnic group in the region. This started changing rapidly in the mid-1980s, due to both the Derg’s forced resettlement policy (see the Anuak - Highlanders conflict) and the influx of Nuer refugees from Southern Sudan. Prior to this, long-standing patterns of eastward migration among the Sudanese Nuer had led to a steady increase in Gambella’s Nuer population during the whole 1900th century. The pace of the migration accelerated greatly due to the Sudanese civil war and by the early 2000s, the Anuak had become a minority in Gambella.
The majority-minority issue became increasingly important when Ethiopia became a federation in the mid-1990s. Around the country ethnic groups scrambled to secure territorial claims, which in turn ensured representation at all levels of government. With power based on ethnic composition, numbers count, and the more Nuer moving into the region, the more power they gain in local government. Thus, the Anuak view is that they are both losing their land and their political influence to the Nuer. The Nuer, for their part argue that they have been marginalized by the Anuak citing e.g. the fact that the Nuer language is no longer taught in schools. Some traditional Anuak land is now inhabited almost exclusively by Nuer and tensions have exploded, leading to intermittent clashes.
The non-state conflict between the Anuak and the Nuer is first included in the UCDP data in 2002. In July of that year, clashes between the two groups pushed the death toll well above the 25 battle-related deaths threshold.
