"Nobody in southern Sudan wants to remain a part of the country," said Bius Subek, of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) Mainstream.

"We want a separate Sudan now. No more confederacy. If we reach an agreement, then great. But Khartoum has indicated that it's not willing to work with the south."

An estimated 500,000 civilians have died from fighting or war-induced famine since the SPLA took up arms in 1983 against Sudan's Muslim-dominated government based in Khartoum. Another 3 million risk starvation.

Relief agencies around the world are providing food and other assistance to the displaced in Sudan, which has a population of about 27 million.

"It is really very terrible," said Subek, sitting in his sparse office in Arapi, in the south. "Sometimes one feels that in one way or another, we may not be members of the human society. The people in Khartoum feel that we are their property.

"It's really very painful. This war has gone on for 10 years. People are continuously dying."

Since gaining independence from Great Britain in 1956, Sudan's north and south have been in nearly continuous conflict fueled by religion, race, politics and ethnic differences. The mostly Arab north is predominantly Muslim, whereas the black African south is mainly animist or Christian.

The key players in the Sudan crisis have been invited to meet for the first time in a conference next week in Washington, D.C. Represented will be the SPLA Mainstream, led by John Garang, and SPLA United, a splinter group of three factions led by Riek Machar. Scholars, Sudanese government and political party representatives also will participate.

The Subcommittee on African Affairs of the House Foreign Relations Committee and the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington will be hosts for the conference.

On Oct. 25, the SPLA and Sudanese government representatives will meet in Atlanta with former President Jimmy Carter as mediator, said Ted Dagne, who works for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Carter participated in peace talks in August in Khartoum.

"Hopefully, they can bury their differences and start serious talks of peace, or have a peaceful divorce," Dagne said.

A spokeswoman at the Carter Center in Atlanta would not confirm the meeting.

The democratic government of Sudan was overthrown by Muslim fundamentalists in 1989 under Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who banned all opposition parties.

The SPLA, saying it feared being swept up in an Islamic culture, has long demanded autonomy and economic development for the south.

However, Sudan embassy spokesman Safwat Siddig denied the Sudanese government wants to impose Islamic law in the south.

"Nobody will harm them unless they violate the law in the north," he said. "The law is clear and just. They don't have to become Islamic."

U.S. officials, though, have said they are deeply worried about Khartoum's coercion of non- Muslim Sudanese.

Along with humanitarian concerns, the United States closely monitors the East African country because economic, political and military instability in Sudan could affect neighboring countries, said a U.S. State Department official.

In August, the United States put Sudan on its list of countries that support international terrorism. U.S. officials believe Sudan and Iran have helped Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid with training and equipment for his ambushes against U.N. troops.

Siddig denied any link between his country and international terrorist activities.

The embassy spokesman said the Sudan government doesn't want the country split because it would worsen conditions.

"There are more differences between the people in the south, tribal splits, than the split between the north and the south," said Siddig.

Relief camps have been set up for the displaced in southern Sudan, and refugees have crossed into Zaire, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.

Meanwhile, SPLA factions cling to lower Sudan as government troops push south.

Recent reports say government troops are trying to capture Nimule, north of Arapi, where a no- fire zone for relief aid has been set up.

Although the government is much to blame for the massive suffering, Bius and relief workers admit factional fighting also has caused destruction, death and displacement.

The SPLA began to splinter in July 1991, and fighting erupted four months later, adding to the waves of refugees.

The 12-year-old Dinka remembers being dragged into the darkness by his parents as government troops opened fire on their town. Gunshots pierced their solace in the bush, scattering hundreds of people.

Running ahead of his mother and father, John turned and saw them fall.

"They were killed by our enemy," said the timid boy, his eyes constantly searching for answers.

For four months, John walked with hundreds of others from the Upper Nile to a relief camp called Atepi. More than 1.7 million Sudanese have fled their homes to escape fighting between the government and rebel factions, traveling hundreds of miles to find food and shelter.

Through gunfire, bush and desolation, John said, he and the villagers ate leaves and "small crawling things." Many died along the way. John was separated from his 14-year-old brother and hasn't seen him since.

When he arrived at Atepi, he was naked, his vision blurred by starvation and fatigue. His black skin clung tightly to his small bones.

"I came with only my hands," John said. "Everything was taken."

Since then, he has regained his strength and made new friends. He lives with workers at the camp. Still, it is bad, he said.

"I have lost my parents, my family. I don't know what will become of me."

Relief camps for southern Sudanese emerged about four years ago in what is called the Nimule corridor, a no-fire zone on the east side of the White Nile, near the Uganda border. "Triple A" is what relief workers call the three largest camps there: Aswa, Atepi and Ame. There are smaller camps, too, and help also is given to villages in the region.

Relief agencies throughout the world have been providing food, shelter, medicine and other assistance to the displaced.

There is hope amidst the destruction and despair. There is school for the children, and crops are cultivated. Still, as time passes, the former lives of the displaced fade. Youngsters grow up without their tribal rituals and their future is hazy.

In Koboko, Uganda, where 58,000 Sudanese refugees settled in August, some win the struggle to stay alive while others die daily of illnesses.

On the White Nile's west side, the refugees fled from fighting in the Kaya area of Sudan and crossed the border into Uganda where four camps were established two months ago. Others are still walking in the bush in Sudan, desperately seeking food and shelter.

"These people have their beautiful houses they left behind," said the Rev. Peter Dada, a refugee leader in Koboko. "They are not poor. They have been reduced to beyond poverty."

According to United Nations figures, an estimated 500,000 civilians have died from fighting or war-induced famine since the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) took up arms in 1983 against Sudan's Muslim-dominated government based in the capital of Khartoum.

The U.N. estimates 2.5 million people in Sudan need assistance. An estimated 1.5 million of them live in the south, and the rest are north in Khartoum or in-between.

Sudan's civil war has forced millions of people to seek refuge across Sudan's borders. More than 367,000 Sudanese refugees live in Ethiopia, Uganda, Zaire, the Central African Republic and Uganda.

SPLA factions cling to lower Sudan while government troops push south.

Long conflict

"We are bitter about the Khartoum government," Dada said. "They still go to people in villages, throwing bombs and intimidating us. Khartoum wants everybody out of the country.

"They cannot impose Islamic law on us. They are to blame. They are forcing to make this a secular state. There is no way the war can stop if Sudan is to become an Islamic state. They must kill everybody."

Although the government is much to blame for the massive suffering, SPLA factional fighting also has caused destruction, death and displacement.

There were meetings last month in Washington between SPLA representatives and the Khartoum government and talks are continuing.

U.S. officials believe Sudan and Iran have helped Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid with training and equipment for his ambushes against U.N. troops. In August, the United States put Sudan on its list of countries that support international terrorism.

Victims of the 10-year civil war have said the only hope for peace is with the help of the international community. Many Sudanese rebels also say that creating a separate state may be the only solution.

The United States has provided $97 million in humanitarian aid this year in Sudan, a State Department official said. More hasn't been done because Sudan hasn't received as much public exposure as problem areas such as Somalia, the official said. Also, Somalia doesn't have an organized government. Sudan does.

Dada said he is frustrated by the lack of worldwide attention to Sudan.

"Nobody is listening," he said. "There are thousands of people dying. The food is given to just part of the people. I feel helpless."

On June 17, 1990, the SPLA raided Yei, west of the White Nile, pushing its 100,000 residents into Kaya 46 miles away, Dada said. The SPLA wanted to push the people out so it could fight the government troops.

"We were settled," Dada said. "We were cultivating crops, we were self-reliant and no more asking for relief. Just books and some other minor items."

On Aug. 5 this year, the Khartoum government drove the people in the Kaya area out with fighter planes and weapons.

About 25,000 people fled on foot to Koboko, Uganda, 12 miles across the border. Although food was available, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) did a head count before supplies were distributed, Dada said. The refugees waited 12 days for the food and many died, he said.

A UNHCR official said he doubts that happened because the agency "doesn't work that way."

Kaya is a strategic area for the Sudanese government because the road from it goes to Khartoum, Dada said. Airplanes drop food to the displaced deep in southern Sudan, but no one is sure if it's reaching everyone.

"Pressure must be made by the international community to open this road and not to use food as a weapon," he said. "There are many people with no access to food; it could be millions."

UNHCR oversees relief work in Koboko and provides the bulk of the food and tents. Other agencies also help with supplies, health care, sanitation and education.

In Koboko, the street splits and a dirt road leads to four camps amid rolling hills and deep green vegetation. The tiny village is 30 miles from the hometown of Idi Amin, Uganda's dictator in the 1970s.

Koboko is shoved into the northwest corner of Uganda, near the borders of Sudan and Zaire and accessible by only one road, a dangerous route with military police scouring the countryside for bandits.

THE CAMP

People in Camp 1 sit, talking, looking bored. Children walk hand in hand. A woman cooks sorghum in a large iron skillet over an open fire. Nearby, someone is digging latrines.

It has been difficult to get enough treated water, so people carry tainted water from a nearby creek. Many don't boil the liquid because there aren't enough metal containers. They get dysentery or diarrhea.

Dada makes daily rounds through four camps in Koboko, shaking hands with the young and old. Small, nearly naked children follow him, their stomachs protruding awkwardly.

He stops in front of a mud toku that Mary Jacarra has nearly finished after three weeks' work.

Barefoot and her arms smeared with dirt, she hurries inside the low-ceiling hut to douse herself with water and returns to greet visitors. She dries her face and hands on a beige dress that seems too fancy for her surroundings.

"I have heard the sounds of guns," Jacarra says calmly in English, with barely an accent. "I left everything in Yei."

Jacarra lived comfortably with her husband and six children in their home in Yei. The couple are primary school teachers and plan to teach at the refugee camp. Classes are held outside in the shade of what few trees are left.

"When I was in Yei, I had many things to eat," she recalls. "Now I eat beans and sorghum. My children don't have clothes."

She hopes one day to go home. For now, she worries about relatives trapped behind the fighting.

"Until my country is free, I will stay here, even though it is very hard for me," she says.

Further down the dirt road from the camp is a cemetery where dozens of children were buried three weeks earlier during a measles outbreak. Small stones blanket the tiny mounds marked with two crossed sticks. A mother weeps by her child's grave.

A man digs a grave for a 62-year-old woman who was healthy when she arrived six weeks earlier. She died of diarrhea. Nearby is a grave waiting for a 6-year-old boy who died of the same illness.

"This is how life is," said one woman. "We are not worried about it. We know each of us will die. We must accept it."

Those in Koboko are learning to survive in a new country, but back across the White Nile, in south Sudan, many displaced Sudanese have lived in relief camps for four years.

Most of the camps were used for Ugandan refugees in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after Amin's dictatorship ended. Displaced Sudanese began living there in the late 1980s.

They don't have cars and few have bicycles. Everything is spread out and difficult to reach because of dangerous roads, SPLA checkpoints and gun-toting soldiers. Walking from one camp to another or to Aswa hospital can take days.

On the two-lane dirt road into Atepi, Aswa and Ame, a Sudan government military tank bombed months ago by the SPLA sits immobile.

Many within this 50-by-35-mile area have settled into a listless life devoid of their culture. They have no real markets and little money to buy anything. Electricity is scarce, with generators at only the hospital and some relief agency compounds.

RELIEF WORK

Within the camps, the people do what they can. Classes are held for children. Relief workers train locals and the displaced how to treat minor ailments and injuries.

People cultivate corn, beans, sorghum, finger millet, sesame, squash, onions, peanuts and tomatoes and other vegetables. They plan to raise poultry and vaccinate the cattle.

"Things are not predictable with this political situation, so we might as well improve the situation whereby the people will depend on themselves," said Berhe Berhan, head of CRS relief work in southern Sudan.

Recently constructed large tokus are used for an agricultural office, schoolhouse, administrative office, family affairs building and medical clinics.

In one building, six foot-pedaled sewing machines and crocheting needles are set up for residents. There's a building where elders in the camp -- widely respected and considered wise leaders -- may meet to discuss issues.

Wal Deng Goch, 54, is one elder. Three-quarters of the 18,000 at Atepi are his people.

"Many of the people died on the way, small children, older children," he said. "We have been dislodged by the government. They do go out and kill the people."

Goch talks with a group of older men at the camp's entrance, under a cluster of tall trees. They still hope to go back to the life they led before they were displaced.

"In that area, we lost cows. We lost fish. We lost people also," Goch said. "For people here, culturally we have lost our lives. There is no way to carry on our culture."

Adults talk to children about the way life used to be at home. But it's not the same, Goch said. They have no musical instruments, and food is just enough to survive.

When boys reach manhood at age 18 to 20, for example, they celebrate by killing cows, drinking the blood and eating the meat. They can't do that because the cows were killed or stolen by government troops.

"Can you not see how the life is here?" Goch said. "It is all we can hope for the war to stop and to go back to my home in Sudan. That is the only hope that I have.

"When you are feeling strong, you are eating good food, living in a good place. Now, we have lost our people, lost our home, our activities. The future of these children is if there is peace."

The small Dinka boy often sits at the feet of Goch and other elders, listening intently to stories of lost traditions.

Gone is the innocence of a boy who, less than two years ago, played with others his age, oblivious to life's harshest realities. Gone are hopes of one day going through tribal rituals heralding his becoming a man and husband.

For now, John lives in this bleak relief camp, playing tag, kicking around stones and daydreaming.

Sitting next to John is Elizabeth Abol, 10, who arrived at Atepi about the same time with her mother.

Her father, four brothers and two sisters were killed during fighting between government and SPLA troops in their village.

"I want to go back," she said. "There is nothing to do here. I cannot dance. I cannot play with others. I am very sad because we have no family. They are all killed."

Then Elizabeth pauses for a moment.

"When there is peace, I hope to be a wife. ... I also want to be educated. I expect a future because I am alive."