South Sudan yesterday marked its third anniversary of independence, with civil war raging, the young nation divided by ethnic atrocities and on the brink of famine.
The streets of the capital were lined with banners proclaiming “One People, One Nation,” with the government of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir due to put on a show of force with a military parade and speeches delivered to celebrate the breakaway from the repressive government in Khartoum.
Authorities had deployed heavy security ahead of the commemorations, underscoring the bitter divisions in the world’s youngest nation where a nearly seven-month-old civil war rages on.
Photo: AFP
“It’s a sad anniversary,” said Juba resident Gideon, 23, adding that he had hoped for the better three years after the fanfare and optimism that swept the country in July 2011.
South Sudan has been wracked by war since December last year, when presidential guards loyal to Kiir clashed with troops supporting ousted vice president Riek Machar, who fled to the bush and rallied a huge rebel army.
The fighting has been marked by widespread atrocities against both members of the Nuer people, to which Machar belongs, and revenge attacks against Kiir’s Dinka group, the single largest tribe.
Civilians have been massacred and dumped in mass graves, patients murdered in hospitals and churches, and entire towns flattened as urban centers including key oil-producing hubs changed hands several times.
The most conservative estimates put the toll at 10,000 dead, although aid workers say the real figure is likely far higher.
Almost 100,000 civilians are sheltering in squalid camps inside UN bases fearing revenge attacks if they leave.
Aid group Oxfam International said South Sudan was “currently Africa’s worst crisis with nearly 4 million — a third of the country’s population — at risk of severe hunger and an aid effort that has only so far reached half of those in need.”
“The world’s attention is elsewhere as Africa’s worst humanitarian catastrophe descends into more misery. We will be staring into the abyss and fail to avert a famine if funds do not start arriving soon to help the people of South Sudan at risk of starvation, disease and violence,” Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said.
“If the aid effort does not increase, 50,000 children could die from malnutrition. Since the current crisis began in December last year fighting has forced 1.5 million people from their homes and numbers continue to rise,” she said.
On the eve of the anniversary, the departing UN representative in the country issued a scathing attack on the country’s leaders, calling them a “self-serving elite” responsible for a looming “man-made famine”.
“Thousands and thousands have been killed,” said Hilde Johnson of the UN mission in South Sudan, lashing out at both the government and rebels and warning that one of the world’s least developed nations has “been set back decades.”
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