Lest the world forgets a festering wound

South Sudan took its place among the community of nations about three years ago after two-decade's brutal war for independence from The Sudan.

Hardly two and a half year's later, Africa's newest state is on the edge of a precipice. A power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his former Vice President Riek Machar broke out in December 2013. Mr Kiir accused Dr Machar of planning a coup d'etat. Efforts to broker peace through the the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have bore no fruit. The talks have looked promising only to stall again. That is frustrating. South Sudan held so much hope and promise for its people when it broke away from The Sudan. What was dismissed as teething problems of building a new nation has now morphed into a calamitous civil strife. To date, the war between two tribal factions, the Nuer and the Dinka to which Mr Kiir and Mr Machar belong respectively, still rages on.

There has been little or no farming in the rich agricultural areas as people flee the fighting. Charity groups have warned of a looming humanitarian crisis facing the more than 1 million displaced cramped in camps with little food and poor health conditions and sanitation. A country rich in minerals and oil still depends on aid. There is a looming of another generation lost in war and illiteracy with little learning going on in schools.

Its precarious social, political and economic situation does not augur well for Kenya, Africa and the world. South Sudan mirrors the tragedy of many post-independent African nations where countries now exist in conditions worse than those when they fought colonialists.

During the civil war, Kenya has been home to top leaders from the country. They and their kin own property in Nairobi. It is not unusual to spot top of the range SUVs parked in Nairobi's upmarket malls. So whereas their country is burning, these pampered leaders and their relatives look seemingly undisturbed sampling high life in Nairobi.

That is unfortunate. It therefore falls on President Uhuru Kenyatta's government to force the hand of the two factions back to the negotiating table for the sake of the suffering millions.

Meanwhile, the leaders of South Sudan need to take cognisance of the suffering of ordinary South Sudanese who looked up to them for a better future at independence.

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South Sudan