South Sudan Ethnic Conflict

Centripetal vs. Centrifugal

A major centripetal force in South Sudan is English being its official language. Although there are an estimated 60 languages spoken by the dozens of ethnic groups. Also, their currency of the South Sudanese pound was adopted after they gained independence from Sudan. South Sudan's cabinet decided to change the country's currency to this with the hopes of improving the economy. A main centrifugal force for the civil war is as mentioned before the existential struggle between the ethnic groups caused by their government specifically the political disagreement between Vice President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir in 2013. People have been so affected, the South Sudan Law Society studied the South Sudanese using the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and concluded, "41% of South Sudanese exhibited symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder." Additionally, famine and starvation are a major problem and 6 million people in South Sudan are severely food insecure. In part because more than 90% of their population relies on rain-fed agriculture, so when it does not rain enough and/or at the right time, South Sudanese people can go hungry. Extreme poverty also contributes to the division of South Sudanese people as well as the breakdown of the national healthcare system. People are more susceptible to diseases because they cannot afford or they lack access to sanitation and clean water.

Root of Conflict

Civil war raged for 22 years between the government in the majority Muslim, North Sudan area and the predominantly south, Christian area where people follow more conventional religions. A peace agreement was reached in 2005 that allowed for the vote of whether South Sudan should separate from Sudan and become its own country. The vote was passed in 2011 with almost 99% support from South Sudanese. Around the world, political leaders considered it a success and believed it would usher in an era of peace. However, it proved to be wishful thinking because during the last push for independence in South Sudan, conflicts between over 60 different ethnic groups - specifically the two biggest groups, the Nuer and the Dinka - were set aside and viewed as less important than the overall goal of independence from the north. Therefore, even when South Sudan earned its independence, the underlying ethnic conflicts were still heavily prevalent and eventually in 2013, civil war broke out after South Sudan's Dinka President, Salva Kiir, accused former Vice President Reik Machar, a Nuer, of inciting a coup.

Conflict Form

The form of the conflict in South Sudan is open violence and in January 2014 the first of many ceasefires was declared but then quickly broken. By June of that same year, 1.4 million people fled their homes to get away from the gun violence and by July of 2016, 150 people died from the fighting in Juba which made even more flee. Around 2,000 South Sudanese refugees fled to Uganda every day back then and people are still fleeing from it to this day.