South Sudan Celebrates its Third Birthday against a Macabre Backdrop

The youngest state in the world celebrated its third birthday in the midst of civil war and the looming threat of famine.

Le plus jeune État au monde célèbre son troisième anniversaire dans un climat de guerre civile et de famine menaçante.

This article has been translated from French. Click here to read the original article on Jeune Afrique

South Sudan celebrates its third anniversary on Wednesday the 9th of July, after months of atrocities and ethnically motivated massacres, and as the threat of famine looms over the country

The conflict pits the army, loyal to President Salva Kiir, against rebel forces led by ex-vice president Riek Machar.  The fighting has led to tens of thousands of deaths, causing over 1.5 million South Sudanese (around 10% of the population) to flee their homes.  It is also responsible for the drastic increase in ethnic tensions within the country.

This is a disastrous situation that has all but eradicated any shred of progress the highly oil-dependent country has made over the last three years.

The Dreaded Famine

No signs of an event to commemorate the country's independence can yet be seen in the streets of Juba — only flyers have been put up.

Although foreign heads of state have been invited, and a military parade has been planned for, followed by a speech at the John Garang Memorial, dedicated to the historic South Sudanese rebel chief that died in 2005, after signing a peace accord with Khartoum that would lead to the independence of his country.

The May cease-fire and the arrival of the rainy season, which limits the movement of troops, have caused the intensity of the fighting to decrease, but humanitarian organizations warn that close to four million South Sudanese (about one third of the population) are at risk of famine.  Part of the country is cut off from the rest due to heavy rain that has made the roads unusable.

The rains have ceased in the oil rich state of Unity in the North of the country, and more than 40,000 refugees have flocked to a regional UN camp there.  In order to respond to the situation more quickly, the International Committee of the Red Cross has begun making aerial food drops, a first since Afghanistan in 1998.

What's more, the peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia have reached an impasse.  On Tuesday, after landing in Juba, Hilde Johnson — the UN representative in South Sudan, accused government and rebel officials of being "corrupt and power hungry self-serving elites", stating that "never before have we bore witness to such killing and atrocity committed by South Sudanese against South Sudanese."

Article Translated by Matthew LaLime, Staff Intern with the Africa Program at the Wilson Center

 Photo Credit: USAID via Flickr