BAHR el-ĠEBEL. APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE of. — In the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan; the prefecture currently occupies the southeastern area 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; its area is 156,251 sq. km., and its population numbers 400,000 inhabitants, divided among several tribes: Bari, Madi, Acioli, Katuko, Loyota, and others, all of them animists, 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 Equatorial Nile all the part of it lying within the Sudan. This measure was also prompted by the fact that, since the Sudanese authorities had isolated the territory of Uganda, where sleeping sickness was prevalent, the missionaries of the sole Equatorial Nile mission could not communicate freely between the two areas, the Sudanese and the Ugandan. The prefecture inherited from the mother mission the stations of Rejaf, Torit, Loa, Lerua, and Isoke, all founded recently, between 1919 and 1926.
Rejaf is the central station, where the missionaries, in accordance with British policy subordinating the opening of missionary stations to the establishment of schools, carry out a precise educational program, with primary schools, a secondary school, and then an intermediate school, for future government employees; all are subsidized by the government, which later also demanded a vocational school. The mission uses the intermediate school for the education of its seminarians (1928).
At the same time, the movement of expansion into the wider territory began, a movement that has intensified in recent times, especially in two centers: at Okaru, among the Lokoya (1928), where, given its favorable location, the intermediate school was transferred, and in ’38 the seminary; and at Kapoeta, at the eastern extremity of the mission, among the Tapossa and Dodinga populations, powerful raiding tribes that were not subjugated by the government until 1923. In 1933, in view of the apostolate’s favorable progress, the prefecture was relieved of its northern part, namely the civil province of Upper Nile,
with which a new autonomous circumscription was formed.
At present the prefecture has 31 Fathers and 4 indigenous priests, 16 Brothers, 30 Pious Mothers of Nigrizia, 248 catechists, and 120 teachers. The 72 primary schools have 2,946 pupils, the secondary school 119, and 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.