After escaping a deadly conflict in Sudan’s Nuba Mountain about a decade ago, Benjamin Farouk found refuge in South Sudan and now strives to help thousands of his displaced countrymen access healthcare. Continue reading Displaced to South Sudan in 2011, Farouk now strives to serve fleeing countrymen
Category: Featured
Meet Juba’s famed mobile broadcaster Sultan Jambo
For the last 20 years, Ismail Ibrahim Jambo has driven old models of Land Rover vehicles mounted with large microphones around Juba’s residential areas as he passionately broadcasts information to attentive audience. Continue reading Meet Juba’s famed mobile broadcaster Sultan Jambo
Meet Siran Riak, the Star of ‘Goodbye Julia’ movie
Meet Siran Riak, a South Sudanese actor in ‘Goodbye Julia‘, a film depicting the painful separation of South Sudan from Sudan.
Continue reading Meet Siran Riak, the Star of ‘Goodbye Julia’ movie
Sudan’s silent suffering, one year into generals’ war
Millions displaced and on the brink of famine. Sexual and ethnic violence. Infrastructure destroyed. Aid workers say a year of war between rival generals in Sudan has led to catastrophe, but the world has turned away.
The northeast African country is experiencing “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory” and “the largest internal displacement crisis in the world”, the United Nations says.
It is also on track to become “the world’s worst hunger crisis”.
Aid workers have called it the “forgotten war” affecting a country of 48 million — more than half of whom they say need humanitarian assistance.
“People have been killed and raped and assaulted and detained and beaten and taken away for months at a time. We’re used to it,” said Mahmud Mokhtar, who helped provide volunteer social services in the Khartoum area during the war before finally fleeing to Cairo.
Experts see no end in sight to the fighting, which began on April 15 last year between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Since then thousands of people have been killed, including up to 15,000 in one West Darfur town alone, according to UN experts.
More than 8.5 million have had to flee their homes to seek safety elsewhere in Sudan or across borders in neighbouring countries.
The war “is brutal, devastating and shows no signs of coming to an end”, said veteran Sudan expert Alex de Waal.
But even if the violence stops now, “the state has collapsed, and the path to rebuilding it is long and fraught”, de Waal said.
Before the bombing and pillaging began, Sudan was already one of the world’s poorest countries.
Yet the UN says that by January, its humanitarian response scheme had only been 3.1 percent funded and can barely reach one of every 10 people in need.
– ‘Milestone of shame’ –
“Before the start of the war, there were dozens of international organisations responding across the country,” according to Christos Christou, international president of medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
“Now, there are almost none.”
The health system has all but collapsed, and most agricultural land — the leading employer and once touted as a model for African development — is out of commission, researchers have said.
Gibril Ibrahim, finance minister in the army-aligned government, said in early March that Sudan had lost “80 percent of its income”.
Days later, the situation became even more precarious when the energy minister declared force majeure over a “major rupture” on an oil pipeline. Oil exports, via neighbouring South Sudan, account for tens of millions of dollars in earnings each month.
For desperate civilians, virtually all that remains is mutual aid: volunteers organising soup kitchens, evacuation plans and emergency health care.
“The world continues to look the other way,” said Will Carter, Sudan country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which alongside MSF is one of the few humanitarian organisations still operating there.
The war’s anniversary is “a milestone of shame”, he said, charging that the international community “has allowed this catastrophe to worsen”.
On the ground, the RSF now controls most of the capital and the western Darfur region.
The paramilitaries descended from the feared Janjaweed militia, unleashed by former strongman Omar al-Bashir’s government to quash an ethnic rebellion.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) charged Bashir with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes dating from 2003, but Sudanese authorities never handed him over following his overthrow in 2019 after mass protests.
– ‘Pure evil’ –
During the current war, government forces have used their air power to bomb targets on the ground, but failed to gain back much territory and have been blamed for striking civilians.
“A final victory is out of the question,” said a former army officer, requesting anonymity to speak freely.
Sudanese analyst Mohammed Latif agreed, telling AFP a win “is impossible” at this point for either side.
“Their troops are tired and their supplies drained,” Latif said.
There has, however, been no shortage of abuses against civilians, rights groups say.
“What is happening is verging on pure evil,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said earlier in the war.
Most recently, the army has taken over homes in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, according to a pro-democracy lawyers’ committee, after similar seizures by the RSF earlier in the fighting.
The lawyers’ committee, like other volunteer groups across Sudan, has spent the past year painstakingly documenting violations including summary killings, the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and the forced conscription of children.
The ICC, currently investigating ethnic-based killings primarily by the RSF in Darfur, says it has “grounds to believe” both sides are committing atrocities.
International mediation efforts yielded only truce announcements that were quickly violated.
A UN Security Council call last month for a ceasefire also failed to end the war, as did Western sanctions.
The war is “a vortex of transnational conflicts and global rivalries that threaten to set a wider region aflame”, said de Waal.
Both sides have sought regional support, experts say, and the United Arab Emirates has been painted as the RSF’s main foreign backer, though its leaders deny it.
Washington has signalled talks could restart around April 18, but army-aligned prosecutors have since moved against civilian leaders the international community had looked to as potential partners.
Still, according to de Waal, “it should not be difficult to reach a consensus across Africa and the Middle East that state collapse is in no one’s interest”.
Against those complex realities, Amer Sohaiel, a displaced man taking shelter in Darfur’s Abu Shouk camp, has a simple hope, “that God will help us achieve peace this year”.
Ex-judge explains who is authorized to make arrests and how
Six days after former Juba Mayor Kalisto Ladu was snatched by security personnel, a former judge in the Court of Appeal says the arbitrary arrest is a violation of the country’s constitution. Continue reading Ex-judge explains who is authorized to make arrests and how
Will troubled South Sudan make December election date?
The clock is ticking but every day doubt is growing. For South Sudan’s international partners, civil society and observers, April is the last chance to ensure that the first elections in the young nation’s history take place, as planned, in December. Continue reading Will troubled South Sudan make December election date?
Minister Bakosoro instills discipline among presidency support staff
The Presidential Affairs Minister has held a meeting with the support staff of the presidency to improve their work relations.
Joseph Bangasi Bakasoro said he wanted the employees to see themselves equally important and work as a team regardless of their roles.
He called on the support staff to cooperate, respect the senior staff, and verse versa.
Minister Bakasoro was addressing the Presidential workers during an induction and orientation workshop on Saturday in Juba.
“Do not say I am just a mere person.This dose not work with me. There is no person who is more important than the other. Every one of you is important.
“What I only want is cooperation, respect these people (senior staff), and they should also respect you, and you work as one body and one spirit.
Explaining the objectives, the Chief Administrator in the Office of the President says, the workshop will enable the support staff do their work in the right way.
“The induction workshop is to introduce you to your work, and help you with your ethics. It teaches you about organization, and how to organize yourself.
“It teaches you how to respect others and how to respect yourself. It introduces you to the powers and limits of your work and you cannot go beyond it because the work is divided,” he said.
Senior staff in the Office of the President are expected to undergo similar program in some time to come.
S. Sudanese Students in Uganda: Harnessing culture for unity in their homeland
March 7, 2024, was a colourful day at the International University of East Africa (IUEA) as students from different parts of Africa showcased enhanced cultural representations based on their origins. Continue reading S. Sudanese Students in Uganda: Harnessing culture for unity in their homeland
Ugandan Media Tour In Juba: Changing South Sudan’s Narrative
A team from the South Sudan Embassy in Uganda accompanied a delegation of Ugandan media professionals to Juba on 12th March 2024 to assess all developmental projects, trade unions and preparedness for the December General elections 2024. Continue reading Ugandan Media Tour In Juba: Changing South Sudan’s Narrative
Juba Bridge marks 50 years as South Sudan’s lifeline
Juba Bridge, probably one of South Sudan’s oldest and most important infrastructures still stands strong and serves the landlocked nation despite clocking half a century since its construction partly with funding from the Kingdom of Netherlands. Continue reading Juba Bridge marks 50 years as South Sudan’s lifeline