Colonial policies and missionary movements have divided Shilluk into Catholic and Protestant denominations. The Catholic Church historically proselytized in the western bank of the Nile and ran mission stations at Lul, Detwoc, Tonga and Yoynyang, while the American Inland Mission ran a mission station at Doleib Hill, located to the south of Malakal on the eastern side of the Nile, but situated on the Sobat River. The Shilluk were a minority in the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) for most of the Second Sudanese Civil War, their number peaking in the late 1980s and the pre-ceasefire fighting in 2004.
