South Sudan’s stormy birthday
After a long, always troubled and often bloody journey, South Sudan’s independence is just days away.
For many it understandably seemed that this moment would never come. After all, January’s decisive referendum to divide Africa’s largest state, whilst one of the final pieces in the 2005 treaty that formally ended two decades of civil war, did nothing to halt the fighting.
Various warlords, armed and sponsored by the North’s despotic president Omar Al-Bashir, wrecked havoc throughout the state-to-be. By April over 1000 were dead, the World Food Programme had pulled out leaving 240 000 more facing starvation and Northern rhetoric over the disputed region of Abyei threatened further conflict.
Shortly after tension boiled over, with Al-Bashir’s troops illegally moving into Abyei and later clashing with Southern forces. Fighting spread to South Kordofan, which falls North of the border line but has a high population of ethnic Nubans loyal to the South:
They are still being targeted in what has already been described as ethnic cleansing.
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