Away from troubled Darfur, people in Sudan are struggling to recover from a 21-year-old civil war between the north and south, the World Food Programme's Marcus Prior discovers.
War has been replaced by wrestling matches
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In Sudan's Nuba mountains, bordering southern Sudan, grown men are fighting each other in public again.
But, for once, there are no guns involved. Instead, as the sun sets to a watery twilight, the young men of upper and lower Kuro wrestle in the dust for local bragging rights.
For centuries, wrestling has pulled the societies of the Nuba mountains together, uniting them in celebration and providing a distraction from daily survival.
These days, the bare-knuckle fights are a sign that peace is returning to a region devastated by conflict.
"Before, people would not gather in large numbers like this - they were too afraid," says Daud Siddiq of the Sudanese Relief and Rehabilitation Council.
"Even if they did, if they heard an Antonov aircraft overhead, they would run away fearing bombardment. For the Nuba, wrestling is part of our culture but only with the ceasefire have things like this been possible."
Waiting for peace
Since the ceasefire was signed two years ago between the Sudanese Government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), life is slowly but surely returning to normal.
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SUDANESE RETURNEES
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But, fears persist that until a comprehensive peace is signed, people are vulnerable to attack.
Many are still living in the hilltop refuges to which they fled during the worst of the conflict and remain reluctant to return to the valley plains, until peace is assured.
Recent rumours of Darfur's Janjaweed militia moving into south Kordofan have done little to reinforce local confidence in the peace process.
With so many people still preferring to stay in their mountain refuges, vast areas of the plains are not being farmed, making it difficult for the region to start the rebuilding process.
"It's a question of confidence," says the head of WFP's local office, Souleymane Beye.
"This area was bombed a lot during the war. There's no way right now that people can grow enough to feed themselves."
Aid needed
Pressure on food supplies has been exacerbated by the large influx of returnees into the Nuba mountains that has followed the initial peace agreement.
Local authorities put the number of returnees this year at over 100,000.
Very few have had time to work the fields and, as a result, they are still dependent to a greater or lesser degree on the kinship system and outside assistance for food.
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I have a farm but there has been complete crop failure this year
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Similar pressure is being felt further south in Northern Bahr el Ghazal. The region has already experienced a significant influx of returnees but is bracing itself for many more, once the worst effects of the rainy season have passed.
Here, however, the problem is different - many areas have experienced major crop failure.
As we drove from village to village we passed field after field of sorghum, blistered to a crisp and beyond salvage.
Some complained that the rains had come too late, others that there had been no rain at all and many that when the rain finally arrived, it fell so hard and in such quantities that their crops were destroyed.
"I have a farm but there has been complete crop failure this year," said Amel Kuol, a striking young woman who had taken her malnourished young son to a feeding centre in the village of Marial Bai.
"I've been getting food from the bush - just picking leaves from some of the trees."
It all adds up to a precarious environment to which those once displaced by the war are now returning.
As much as southern Sudan needs a comprehensive peace deal, one of the world's least developed regions also requires enormous international support to ensure the fruits of peace are shared by all.
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