Messiria tribe

Ethnic group

The Messiria (المسيرية), known also under the name of Misseriya Arabs, are a branch of the Baggara ethnic grouping of Arab tribes. Their language is Sudanese Arabic. Numbering over one million, the Baggara are the second largest ethnic group in Western Sudan, extending into Eastern Chad. They are primarily nomadic cattle herders and their journeys are dependent upon the seasons of the year. The use of the term Baggara carries negative connotations as slave raiders, so they prefer to be called instead Messiria.

In Kordofan, the Messiria occupies the area historically known as West Kordofan, among their well known locations are: Abyei, Babanousa, El Muglad, Lagawa, El Mairam, and Lake Kailak.

During the dry season the Misseriya migrate to the river Kiir in Abyei. They call the region the Bahr Al Arab. Both branches of Messiria, the Humr and the Zurug, are involved in historical grazing disputes and isolated fights along their southern borders, either with Dinka, Nuer or Nuba over grazing and water resources. The traditional fighting was intensified during the first Southern guerrilla's fighting, called Anyanya, in 1964 when a whole Messiria nomad camp around lake Abyyad was massacred in a terrible human slaughter by Anyanya fighters, none were spared including children, elderly and brides; many Messiria were abducted and women were raped by the rebels. The Messiria retaliated with a sequence of attacks targeting Southern villages and nomadic camps; they abducted children and raided cattle. At the time, the abductions and retaliations became the norm in the region, but, mostly children and cattle were retrieved by local authorities and the spirit and will of coexistence always prevailed. Such targeting of Anyanya fighters on Messiria nomads lead to Messiria starting to accumulate weaponry to counterbalance the rebel fighters' force. Earlier incidents in the early eighteenth century during British rule, had led to both Hawazma and Messiria taking up arms. In around 1908, the British armed the Nuba to fight against the expansion of the Northern Arabs in the region. Weapons, known locally as Marmatoun and Ab’gikra, were as common among Nuba as AK 47 among Baggara Arabs today. All these indicate that the ingredients of ethnic war already exist in the region and the new SPLA war was just an ignition of an existing ethnic chasm in the area. In Abyei the Dinka Ngok and Misseryia are engaged in territorial disputes.

See the Civil War under Hawazma. The Messiria are the first Northern tribes and the first Baggara tribes to suffer from the Southern war. The Sudanese government gave the Misseriya Arab militia machine guns and ordered them to drive the Nilotic peoples from the Western Upper Nile oil region. They successfully took the Luk Nuer in Bentiu and Eastern Jikany Nuer in 1984.