evidence: The disputed area of Heglig, or Panthou as it is being referred to in South Sudan, grabbed the world’s attention in the past weeks. On 10 April 2012 the Government of the Republic of South Sudan announced that they had successfully occupied the area which most people had understood to be part of Sudan in the troubled state of Southern Kordofan. [...] While South Sudanese maintain that they have always considered the area of Panthou (Heglig) to be part of South Sudan, the dispute remained generally off the radar, overshadowed by issues such as the ownership of Abyei and negotiations on oil revenues. The issue of ownership of Panthou/Heglig was not high on the agenda of actors within South Sudan, other than as part of the overall need for border demarcation. The ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which had been given the mandate to delimit the borders of Abyei and was to constitute a final and binding ruling, released its decision on 22 July 2009 stating that Heglig was not within the territory of Abyei. With this came an assumption by many that if Heglig is not a part of the disputed area of Abyei, and was not mentioned as part of other disputed areas, then it was part of Southern Kordofan State, Sudan.