South Sudan: Why we need to care

Kenya: Africa welcomed its newest member in July 2011 after the continent’s largest country, Sudan, split into two. The path to the birth was fraught with bloodshed with its now northern neighbour.

To the Southerners, independence conjured up images of tarmacked roads, good schools, food security, well-equipped hospitals and generally, a happy population. What excited many South Sudanese was the freedom to chart their country’s destiny as they wished. The feeling was just like the 1960s’ independence wave that spread across Africa.

Almost three years later, while many had hoped that South Sudan would have changed for the better, events in the aftermath of an alleged failed coup in December have dashed the hopes of the 10 million souls in the country.

Since the skirmishes, the UN estimates that up to 1 million people have been displaced and 3.5 million face imminent starvation. In fact the situation is so dire that some of the affected are eating grass and roots.

Sudan is bleeding. It is evolving into a humanitarian catastrophy. Its citizens now exist in conditions of poverty no better than those they fought to escape when they were part of the larger Sudan.

It was frightening to imagine South Sudan becoming another failed African story where the elite squander away the country’s wealth and stash it yesterday in foreign bank accounts.

The fallout in December apparently precipitated by the sacking by President Salva Kiir of his vice-president Riek Machar in July last year was unexpected. So far, international mediation by IGAD, AU and other parties have borne little fruit. More is needed to stop South Sudan sliding further into the abyss.