Dinka elders and local government officials assert that the border should instead lie near Khor Ayuel, some 90 km north of the area under review. As in other disputed portions of the border, local officials argue that historical grazing agreements allowing seasonal access to Arab pastoralists were later reinterpreted as actual boundary changes. They claim that provincial officials later formalized changes without consent of Abilang community, and land was subsequently settled by others who previously exercised only secondary rights. Community leaders in Renk assert the primacy of tribal boundaries, relying on local knowledge of the dar rather than maps or historical gazetting. They argue that traditional tribal lands stretched north of Jabalain, currently administered by White Nile State. Today, northern pastoralists regularly migrate south into the Renk area in the dry season in search of grazing land. Likewise, Dinka communities occupy areas north of the border. Many seek goods and services, medical care, and education in the North; the majority of commodities are sold by northern merchants. Maintaining cross-border movement is important to populations in both North and South. While this trans-boundary relationship has been amicable since the CPA, there is anxiety on both sides that it could be damaged following the referendum, should the border be hardened.
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