BAHR EL-JEBEL. - In the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan; the prefecture currently occupies the south-eastern zone between the 4th and 6th parallels, and is crossed from north to south by the river of the same name, from which the mission itself took its name; the area is 156,251 sq. km., and the population numbers 400,000 inhabitants, divided into several tribes: Bari, Madi, Acioli, Katuko, Loyota and others still, all of animist religion, but not without a certain belief in a Supreme Being, who however takes no interest in humanity. The prefecture was created on 14 July 1927 by detaching from the vicariate (then prefecture) of the Equatorial Nile all that part of it lying within the Sudan. This measure was also suggested by the fact that, since the authorities of the Sudan had isolated the territory of Uganda, where sleeping sickness was raging, the missionaries of the only mission of the Equatorial Nile could not freely communicate between the two zones, the Sudanese and the Ugandan. The prefecture inherited from the mother mission the stations of Rejaf, Torit, Loa, Lerua and Isoke, all of recent foundation, from 1919 to 1926.
Rejaf is the central station, where the missionaries, in dependence on the English policy that subordinates the opening of missionary stations to the establishment of schools, carry out a precise scholastic programme, with primary schools, a middle school and then an intermediate one, for future government employees; all are subsidized by the government, which subsequently also demanded a vocational school. The mission makes use of the intermediate school for the instruction of its seminarians (1928).
At the same time the movement of conquest in the open began, a movement that has been intensifying in recent times, especially in two centres: at Okaru, among the Lokoya (1928) where, given the favourable location, the intermediate school was transferred, and in '38 the seminary; and Kapoeta, at the eastern extremity of the mission, among the Tapossa and Dodinga populations, strong raiding tribes that were subdued by the government only in 1923. In 1933, given the good progress of the apostolate, the prefecture was relieved of its northern part, that is, of the civil province of the Upper Nile, with which a new autonomous circumscription was formed.
At present the prefecture has 31 Fathers and 4 native priests, 16 Brothers, 30 Pie Madri della Nigrizia, 248 catechists, 120 teachers. The 72 primary schools gather 2,946 pupils, the middle school 119, the vocational school 57. Charity is exercised in 9 dispensaries and 2 small orphanages; the Catholics in 15 principal and secondary stations number 24,418, and the catechumens 5,511.
Bibliography
Tragella, Italia Missionaria, Milan 1939, pp. 328-33; MC, pp. 25-26; Arch. de Prop. Fide, pos. n. prot. 3476/47.
Giovanni B. Tragella