 The British governor of Bahr El Ghazal, Thomas Richard Hornby Owen, observed during a visit to Deim Zubeir in the early 1950s ""increased drunkenness, particularly among government officials and employees"".One of the pioneers of modern civilian politics in Southern Sudan, Faustino Roro, was born in Deim Zubeir in 1923.During the early 1940s he co-founded the Southern Sudan Social and Political Association, based in Juba.