The homeland that was born tired
No one expected it to be easy.
But no one thought it would be so ruthless.
When South Sudan celebrated its independence in July 2011, excitement overflowed the streets of Juba, the makeshift capital of a new country. Hand-made flags, chants, tears: South Sudan, after decades of civil wars, genocides, and displacements, emerged as the youngest country in the world.
A blank page, they said. A future to be written.
Thirteen years later, the story is different.
South Sudan is broken.
Broken by the ambitions of leaders who forgot their people. Broken by the weight of weapons, hunger, fear. Broken by a world that abandoned it when it stopped being news.
This is not just another note.
It is an attempt, barely, to look beyond forgetfulness.
To tell what happens when an entire country ages prematurely, when life becomes mere endurance, and when the promises of history crash against the mud.
How to reach ruin: a brief history of an announced failure
South Sudan was born from a wound: the marginalization and violence suffered at the hands of northern Sudan, dominated by Arab Muslim elites, while the south, predominantly Christian and animist, was treated as second-class periphery.
The price of that independence was extremely high:
Two brutal civil wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005).
Millions dead.
A devastated south, with no infrastructure or real state.
The independence of 2011 did not solve these problems.
It transferred them, amplified, to a new arena: the internal of the south itself.
Ethnic divisions—especially between the Dinka and the Nuer—that previously hid behind a common enemy, emerged strongly.
And the leaders who promised to build a nation entrenched themselves in their own interests, using power as business rather than as service.
In December 2013, just two years after independence, the civil war erupted.
It was not a war of noble causes. It was a war of betrayals, greed, and resentments.
Daily life in the country that does not take off
Living in South Sudan is like walking on an endless minefield.
Routine is built on uncertainties: Will there be food tomorrow? Will it be safe to go to the supermarket? Will I be able to find drinking water?
More than 9 million people—75% of the population—need humanitarian assistance.
About 2.3 million live as refugees in neighboring countries.
Another 2 million are internally displaced, without homes or means of subsistence.
Hunger is not just a seasonal phenomenon. It is a permanent state.
Violence is not just an eventual risk. It is a structural condition.
When forgetfulness kills more than bullets
South Sudan does not have the media visibility of other crises.
There are no major international campaigns. There are no urgent summits or massive mobilizations on social networks.
The world got tired of South Sudan because it is a long tragedy, without dramatic explosions, without quick changes.
It is a slow tragedy, of bodies that fade like candles in the dark.
Less humanitarian funding.
Less political pressure.
Less incentives for peace.
The result is that life in South Sudan has become residual, as if it were worth less than life in other parts of the world.
Women: the columns that still support what remains
While men fight, many Sudanese women sustain life with their hands.
Under the weight of violence, poverty, and hopelessness, the women of South Sudan are living resistance.
In displacement camps, they organize community care networks.
They teach children in makeshift classrooms made of branches and tarps.
They maintain small gardens to feed dozens of people.
They are minimal, invisible yet heroic stories.
Because here, in the youngest country in the world, being a woman means fighting every day against the extinction of hope.
Suspended life: a reflection on existence under war
What is it to live when everything is broken?
What is the point of building dreams in a country that cannot guarantee a future, a tomorrow?
In South Sudan, life does not follow normal lines. There are no long-term projects. There are no certainties.
Life boils down to today: eat today, drink today, protect oneself today.
And yet, even there, in the midst of the mud, hunger, and weapons, people laugh when they can.
Children play with balls made of rags. Women sing songs from their villages.
Life insists, even if it has no reason to do so.
What does this tell us, who live in societies of certainties?
That life is not a guaranteed promise.
That human dignity does not depend on economic stability or political security.
That even in ruins, human beings seek, in some way, to continue being human.
Is there a tomorrow for South Sudan?
The question is not rhetorical.
With elections scheduled—again postponed—with peace agreements that are routinely violated, with an economy dependent on oil and a fragile state, South Sudan's future hangs by a thread.
Some factors that will define the country's destiny:
Real integration of armed groups into the political process.
Sustained international investment in infrastructure and education.
Deep ethnic reconciliation, to be achieved not only on paper but in daily practice.
True political commitment from Sudanese elites, beyond power-sharing.
Today, this seems utopian. But thinking of South Sudan only as a hopeless tragedy would be to commit the same error that the world has made so many times: the error of resigning oneself.
The right to hope
South Sudan is not just a failed state.
It is an uncomfortable mirror: it shows us what happens when politics forgets its most basic function—protecting and giving meaning to the lives of people.
It is not too late. It should not be.
Every child who plays in the mud, every woman who cultivates a small plot of land, every young person who still dreams of studying, is proof that the youngest country in the world is not dead yet.
It is broken.
Yes.
But as long as there are those who resist, as long as there are those who refuse to fall, South Sudan still has the right to its hope.
Comments