Hope for South Sudan dashed after horror decade
DROUGHTS, FLOODS, AND LOCUSTS HAVE DESTROYED HARVEST SEASONS AND PUSHED ENTIRE COMMUNITIES TO THE VERY EDGE
In July 2011, Nunu Diana smiled through tears as South Sudan gained independence, envisioning the future for her homeland: a great nation, peaceful and prosperous, brimming with hope and opportunity.
Ten years later, with those aspirations shattered by civil war, chronic instability and economic ruin, Diana looks back on that youthful optimism with resignation.
“I think it was just a dream,” the 33-year-old social worker and mother of four said in Juba. As celebrations broke out in the capital, and the flag of a newly independent South Sudan waved high, Diana watched the festivities on television from a refugee camp in Uganda, where her family had fled years of seemingly endless war.
The declaration of independence meant an end to the bloodshed between Sudan’s predominantly minorities in the north and its overwhelmingly Christian in the south — and a chance to finally return home.
“July 9 actually made me more independent than South Sudan itself, because I knew I will come to my country,” said Diana.
The happiness of that moment, she said, and the hope for her country and its people was like “a new baby was born”.
Growing up, Diana listened in wonder at speeches by venerated leaders fighting for independence from Sudan: “It gave me hope that one day we would be a great nation,” she said.
Upon independence, the possibility appeared limitless. South Sudan was rich in oil, blessed with fertile land and abundant water from the White Nile, a land of fantastic natural wealth and potential.
“I envisioned a South Sudan where the health system would be very powerful given that we have our natural resources,” Diana said.
“I also envisioned South Sudan where we had the human resources, especially young South Sudanese, who came from different countries to come and build the country in a more peaceful manner.”
Importantly, too, she saw for her children the chance to study and learn, opportunities she was denied growing up in war and misery.
Diana returned hopeful and ambitious to South Sudan in early 2012 — but it did not take long for the mirage to fade.
By the end of 2013, simmering tensions over control of the new state between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar exploded into the open, with their respective troops opening fire on each other.
South Sudan was at war with itself. On December 20, Diana entered Uganda once more as a refugee, taking her young son with her.
“We had all our hopes for South Sudan, that our children will not go through what we went through,” she said.