South Sudan: warm welcome to unsteady nation

Throngs of thousands came out to cheer, dance, party — and shed a few tears — at the birth of a fragile new African nation. After decades of instability and conflict, the southern Sudanese now have a country to call their own.


Nils Carstensen/ACT
Celebrations at the John Garang Memorial in Juba, southern Sudan during the January 2011 referendum.

In the new capital, Juba, people stood under a blazing sun for hours on 9 July to watch the raising of the new country's flag and see Salva Kiir sign the constitution and take oath of office as president.

Act for Peace’s global partner ACT Alliance, which has worked for decades in the impoverished region that is now South Sudan, congratulated the people on the formation of their country.

ACT Alliance general secretary John Nduna said the journey had been painful but the people justifiably deserved statehood and should be commended on their wish for reconciliation with Sudan.

“ACT congratulates South Sudan, affirms its support for the development of the country and looks forward to stronger cooperation with the government,” he said.

ACT Alliance members have worked in what is now South Sudan since at least the 1970s, with emergency airlifts of food and other supplies, help to so called “lost boys and girls” in refugee camps, and assistance resettling Sudanese refugees. Long-running efforts to bring about the referendum for southerners on secession in January involved significant work by Act for Peace’s ACT Alliance partners.

However, self-determination has come at a bitter price for the oil-rich country. The people endured no less than half a century of struggle including a civil war which killed 1.5 million Sudanese.

South Sudan is born into trying circumstances. As one of the world’s least developed countries, it has the worst maternal mortality rate, and an illiteracy rate among women of 84 per cent. Most children under 13 do not attend school. One in seven dies before the age of five.

South Sudan must also contend with the matter of dividing debts and oil reserves with the north, border disputes and the citizenship of southerners in the north. It has seven rebel groups. Fears of a new war recently arose following fighting in two border areas, Abyei and South Kordofan.

Please click here to read about how Act for Peace's partner worked to help make the January 2011 referendum on self-determination of South Sudan peaceful and fair.