South Sudan – a long struggle for self-determination and a young nation
The lands along the White Nile and its tributaries have long been home to many peoples, among them the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Azande and Bari, whose cattle-herding and farming cultures developed over centuries. In the 19th century the region was drawn into the orbit of Ottoman-Egyptian Sudan, and slave raiding and the ivory trade brought great suffering.
From 1899 the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium governed Sudan, but the British administered the south largely separately from the north, with Christian missions playing a major role in education. When Sudan became independent in 1956, many southerners felt excluded from power. A first civil war broke out even before independence and lasted until the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972, which granted the south a degree of autonomy.
In 1983 fighting resumed, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement led by John Garang waged a second civil war that cost an immense number of lives and displaced millions. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 ended the war and promised a referendum. In January 2011 an overwhelming majority voted for independence, and on 9 July 2011 South Sudan became the world's newest state. Only two years later, a power struggle within the leadership plunged the country into a new civil war; a peace agreement in 2018 created a fragile path toward stability.
Today South Sudan is shaped by its many peoples and languages, the rhythm of the Nile and the hope for lasting peace.
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