religions, beliefs and lifestyle have led to conflict with the Arab Muslim government in Khartoum. The Sudan People's Liberation Army, led by the late Dr. John Garang De Mabior, a Dinka, took arms against the government in 1983. During the subsequent 21-year civil war, many thousands of Dinka, along with non-Dinka fellow southerners, were massacred by government forces. Since the independence of South Sudan, the Dinka, led by Salva Kiir Mayardit, have also engaged in a civil war with the Nuer and other groups, who accuse them of monopolising power. Christianity In 1983, due to Sudan's second civil war, many young educated Dinka men and women were forced to flee from the cities where they were working back to rural villages. Some of these men were Christians who had been converted by the Church Missionary Society and they took their faith with them when they fled. Among these men and women were ordained clergymen who began preaching in the villages. Song and praises were used to teach the mostly illiterate Dinka about the faith and Biblical lessons. A large number of Dinka people have converted to Christianity and are learning how to adapt or reject ancient religious practices and rituals to match Christian teachings. The Christian conversion of the Dinka people did not only happen in the rural villages but also among Dinka refugees as they fled the war-torn country. The Lost Boys of Sudan were converted in great numbers in the refugee camps of Ethiopia. Dinka massacre On November 15, 1991, the event known as the "Dinkas Massacre" commenced in South Sudan. Forces led by the breakaway faction of Riek Machar deliberately killed an estimated 200,000 civilians of Dinka Bor, Dinka Twic East, Dinka Nyarweng, and Dinka Hol in villages and wounded several thousand more over the course of two months. Much of their wealth was destroyed, which led to mass death due to hunger. It is estimated that 100,000 people left the area following the attack. Pastoral strategies Southern Sudan has been described as "a large basin gently sloping northward", through which flow the Bahr el Jebel River, the (White Nile), the Bahr el Ghazal (Nam) River and its tributaries, and the Sobat, all merging into a vast barrier swamp. Vast Sudanese oil areas to the south and east are part of the flood plain, a basin in southern Sudan into which the rivers of Congo, Uganda, Kenya,