Shownotes Transcript
South Sudan is the world's youngest country. Since it was formed in 2011, it has faced civil war and famine. One in four children there face malnutrition and more than two million people have fled the country. Now some people are saying that another civil war is looming. So today you're going to hear all about what is going on in South Sudan. I'm Hannah Gelbart and this is What's in the World from the BBC World Service.
Joining me from the Nairobi Bureau is our reporter Ashley Limei. Hi, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Hannah. First of all, can you tell me a bit about South Sudan as a country? South Sudan is the world's youngest nation, having been formed in 2011 after a referendum where the people living in the south decided that they wanted to secede from the north. This was because of internal divisions,
cultural and religious differences, economic disparities, and even the fact that the South felt like it was marginalised. And so they felt they wanted to be led and governed by their own person and not by the North. And there are two main people that we need to know about in South Sudan. There's the president who's famous for wearing his cowboy hat, that is Salva Kiir, and the vice president, Riek Machar. Tell me a bit about them. What do we need to know about them?
So for President Salva Kiir, he's a 73-year-old South Sudanese. He's a former military commander. He actually specialized in military intelligence. He's from the Dinka community, which is the largest ethnic community in South Sudan.
And also, he used to be very quiet, rather moderate, if you can call it that. And therefore, he looked like a very good choice in the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. So in 2005, he's actually the one who was picked to lead the country. And the vice president, tell me about him.
The vice president, Riek Mashar, is about 72 years old. He's known as a rebel leader. He's known as the first vice president of South Sudan. He's also known as a peacemaker, if we can say, because experts say that his position in government is actually a unifying factor because it brings his Nuer community together. I want to go back to 2011, just after the country was formed. A civil war occurred.
broke out shortly afterwards. Why was there a civil war and how did that end? Yeah, so a civil war broke out two years later after South Sudan gained independence and it was after President Salva Kiir actually...
the first vice president, Riyak Mashar, of wanting to instigate a coup. And as a result of that, he fired the entire cabinet. And that caused war. And maybe just to take you back in context, President Salva Kiir is from the Dinka community, which is South Sudan's largest ethnic community.
while Riek Mashar is from the Nuer community, which is the second largest ethnic group. And for some reason, these two men have been fighting each other all the time. And it's not really known, is it people trying to flex their muscles or not, but because of the different ethnic differences between these two men, they have always been fighting. And I'll explain that even as we get to what is happening currently. Okay.
Yes, because there was that civil war from 2013, then there was a peace deal in 2018, which has held until now. How did that come about? Yeah, so after a lot of fighting, those were around...
five years of fighting from 2013 to 2018. So the two leaders were brought together and told to actually sit down and agree on a peace deal because about 400,000 people had been killed and 2.5 million people had been displaced. And this was too much for the country.
So the peace deal was drafted and they agreed to hold elections, to merge their armies, to hold a census and even to just do some disarmament in the country. But apparently this was not done until now and the two leaders have just been
coexisting, if I can say, because every time there's a disagreement, this one will retaliate, the other one will also retaliate. So that is the kind of relationship that has been there since 2018 until now. But as you say, there have been tensions. There's a
crisis within the government between these two characters, between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar. What is going on between them now? Early March, the forces belonging to, actually linked to Riek Machar, they are called the White Army, they are an Uyghur militia group,
They overran an army base in a place called Nasser County, which is in northern South Sudan in the upper Nile state. And they attacked the government army. And Riek Macha said that he was actually...
acting in some sort of retaliation to what President Salva Kiir has had done by attacking his forces in another county still in the north called Ulaan County. And therefore, President Salva Kiir also retaliated by arresting an army general and other top officials of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement that belongs to Riekma Shar. So it's been fighting
like retaliation here and there. So that actually caused the conflict and the tensions that we have been seeing right now in South Sudan. Manrique Machal was arrested on the 28th of March. What happened there?
Yeah, so before news of Riek Machar's arrest came, I was in touch with people from the SPLMIO who were actually saying that Riek Machar has been arrested and that his house had been surrounded and breached, but we couldn't confirm then. The SPLMIO is the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in opposition that is actually led by...
by Riek Mashar. The government actually confirmed that he was under house arrest and that he was arrested and he was going to actually take accountability for inciting rebellion and even planning to disrupt the upcoming elections, which should be in December 2026. So that is basically the reason why he's under house arrest. There have been reports of violence, fighting, violence
barrel bombs being used. What is it like in South Sudan now? It's really fragile. It's really volatile. And the people there are traumatized because we actually reached out to some people in northern South Sudan, specifically in Nassir County. And some of them were actually telling us that
barrel bombs were being dropped. They were actually aerial bombardments, and the liquid was highly flammable, as described by the UN. Experts were saying that this was ethyl acetate that was being used on the people. So I spoke to someone who requested for anonymity for fear of reprisals, and he told me that
That liquid actually burned children, women and even men beyond recognition. The men there were traumatized and the women and children had actually crossed into Ethiopia because they feared being attacked. So what the men were doing, they were selling their cows and actually buying guns to protect themselves. So it's a very complicated kind of conflict that is going on in South Sudan. How have international organizations in other countries reacted?
responded to what's been going on recently in South Sudan? Several international organizations like the United Nations, the African Union, IGAD, which is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, have come out to condemn this conflict and saying that this country is being pushed
to the brink of civil war. And even we had recently the African Union Commission going up to South Sudan, to Juba. They sent the panel of the wise to go and try to negotiate and see whether these two leaders, that is President Salva Kiir and the first vice president, Riek Machar, could come together
have dialogue and try to end the tensions that are actually building up every day in South Sudan. But so far, I don't think anything has materialized when it comes to these meetings with the leaders in South Sudan. How likely do you think it is that South Sudan will have another civil war? We have spoken to several experts who have been
been watching the events in South Sudan unfold. And they say if dialogue is not done very soon, and if the leaders do not agree to sit down and talk about this and end this disagreement, then the country is most likely to go into a civil war. And we've seen even the opposition people, the SPLMIO people, saying that the peace deal is basically dead because now it has been breached.
by Riek Macha being arrested. And therefore, if they do not release him, they have declared war. So both sides are very adamant and people want their country back. People are pleading for peace in South Sudan. Ashley, thank you so much. Thank you and goodbye, Hannah. And thank you for joining us. This is What In The World from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Gelbart and we'll see you next time. Bye.