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.