Black History Month 2018: South Sudan’s Implosion

It has been nearly 8 years since South Sudan became the world’s newest black nation. Its territory is rumored to be the home of the kangz of Wakanda who mine vibranium.

In Black History Month 2012: The Bloody Birth of South Sudan, OD took a brief look into this country, which we observed at the time was a creation of the failed state lobby. We noted the euphoric independence celebrations by the South Sudanese community in the United States in Sioux Falls, SD, Omaha, NE and in Toronto, Canada.

Anyway, I said that South Sudan “has all the characteristics of another Darfur, Rwanda, or Liberia in the making.” It was one of the few places on earth you can still buy a slave for $50. That’s not the fault of Europeans who never brought any slaves from there across the Atlantic.

So how did it go? How did freedom work out in South Sudan?

“1 February 2018 – The human cost of South Sudan’s long-running conflict has reached “epic proportions” with the number of refugees set to rise beyond three million by the end of this year, potentially making it Africa’s largest refugee crisis since the mid-1990s, the head of the UN refugee agency said on Thursday.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, together with UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, launched a $3.2 billion appeal to help those forced to flee their homes, as fighting continues across the world’s youngest country.

They are appealing for $1.5 billion to support refugees who have fled across the border into six neighbouring countries, including Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR).

A further $1.7 billion is needed to help those internally-displaced by the fighting, which has fuelled famine conditions, and a humanitarian crisis since conflict broke out between forces loyal to the President and Vice-President, in 2013.

Mr. Grandi said the violence was “purging South Sudan of the people who should be the greatest resource of a young nation.”

“They should be building the country, not fleeing it,” he added.

Mr. Grandi and Mr. Lowcock, who is also the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, have been visiting newly-arrived refugees from the country, in UNHCR’s Kakuma refugee camp, in northern Kenya.

Mr. Lowcock said that the conflict had taken a “brutal and deadly toll” and it was “in the interests of everyone to continue to provide generous and continuous support” to the refugees.

There are nearly 2.5 million South Sudanese who have already fled the country, and around seven million need humanitarian assistance.”

White man’s fault. Dey stole our vibranium.

Since we last checked on South Sudan, something like a quarter of a million people have died in a civil war. The economy has been destroyed. A fourth of the population has been displaced. 6 million people are starving to death. It has become Africa’s largest refugee crisis since Rwanda.