The Sudan gained independence from Britain in 1956. It spent 38 of the next 50 years embroiled in civil war. The history of conflict in the Sudan is complicated and descriptions have often simplified or distorted the reality of the situation. However, the simplest description of the conflict requires only one word: tragic.
How many have been killed between 1956 and 2011 may never be known. Estimates for the First and Second Sudanese Civil Wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005 respectively) are over two million when war-related famine and disease are included. This is some of the worst loss of life from conflict since the Second World War. But the full devastation is not told by simple casualties. In addition to those killed, millions have been displaced, forced from their homes and land, their lives shattered. And there is also the unquantifiable tragedy of the wasted potential of a fertile land and the complete prevention of any kind of economic or social development in so many places. There is no-one in South Sudan who hasn’t been affected by the conflict.
One man I spoke to had fought in the first Civil War. He spoke of his village being bombed. A younger man tells me he left his home and grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya – his brother was killed in the war. Others talk of fathers and relatives who fought.
One night I am told of a man who was arrested and killed after receiving a letter from his brother in Uganda. His brother wrote asking how he was coping, having heard of the famine conditions in Sudan at the time. The content of the letter was deemed as evidence that too much information had been communicated outside the country.
Another story was told of a woman lining up for food with her infant child on her back. She waited in the crowd being pushed and shoved for hours until she finally got some food. When she reached for the child she found it was dead, crushed by the desperation of the crowd trying to get food.
The suffering inflicted on the Sudanese people from famine and displacement was exacerbated by an antagonistic government that repeatedly prevented international assistance from reaching those in need. In 2009 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir, the first time a sitting head of state had been indicted by the court. In 2010 a second warrant was issued including charges of genocide.
I sat around one night with a group of young men born at the beginning of the 1980s. For them they had known conflict almost their entire lives. “In Europe when young people sit around they talk of other things, but here we talk about politics” said one of them to me. For us, so often, the events of the news are dramatic but far away and politics is an academic diversion more than a pressing reality. For these men politics and conflict had directly informed their whole lives; to be a passive spectator wasn’t an option. Yet they were not fatalistic, they spoke hopefully and proudly of their country and its future and seemed to have a clear sense that they had a role to play.
Everyone here has been touched by the conflict on some personal level. Even as South Sudan prepares for Independence fighting has reignited in the border areas and the future of Darfur seems uncertain. For some in Juba the peace feels like a precarious one. And for some in other parts of the country there is no peace at all.
How many have been killed between 1956 and 2011 may never be known. Estimates for the First and Second Sudanese Civil Wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005 respectively) are over two million when war-related famine and disease are included. This is some of the worst loss of life from conflict since the Second World War. But the full devastation is not told by simple casualties. In addition to those killed, millions have been displaced, forced from their homes and land, their lives shattered. And there is also the unquantifiable tragedy of the wasted potential of a fertile land and the complete prevention of any kind of economic or social development in so many places. There is no-one in South Sudan who hasn’t been affected by the conflict.
One man I spoke to had fought in the first Civil War. He spoke of his village being bombed. A younger man tells me he left his home and grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya – his brother was killed in the war. Others talk of fathers and relatives who fought.
One night I am told of a man who was arrested and killed after receiving a letter from his brother in Uganda. His brother wrote asking how he was coping, having heard of the famine conditions in Sudan at the time. The content of the letter was deemed as evidence that too much information had been communicated outside the country.
Another story was told of a woman lining up for food with her infant child on her back. She waited in the crowd being pushed and shoved for hours until she finally got some food. When she reached for the child she found it was dead, crushed by the desperation of the crowd trying to get food.
The suffering inflicted on the Sudanese people from famine and displacement was exacerbated by an antagonistic government that repeatedly prevented international assistance from reaching those in need. In 2009 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir, the first time a sitting head of state had been indicted by the court. In 2010 a second warrant was issued including charges of genocide.
I sat around one night with a group of young men born at the beginning of the 1980s. For them they had known conflict almost their entire lives. “In Europe when young people sit around they talk of other things, but here we talk about politics” said one of them to me. For us, so often, the events of the news are dramatic but far away and politics is an academic diversion more than a pressing reality. For these men politics and conflict had directly informed their whole lives; to be a passive spectator wasn’t an option. Yet they were not fatalistic, they spoke hopefully and proudly of their country and its future and seemed to have a clear sense that they had a role to play.
Everyone here has been touched by the conflict on some personal level. Even as South Sudan prepares for Independence fighting has reignited in the border areas and the future of Darfur seems uncertain. For some in Juba the peace feels like a precarious one. And for some in other parts of the country there is no peace at all.
This recent article gives an idea of some of the conflict that is going on right now! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13882924
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