On July 9, 2011, the referendum results had been received, the people of southern Sudan had achieved what many had deemed impossible: independence. This officially marked the birth of the worlds youngest country, South Sudan. The unintended consequences that it resulted in, is an absolute devastation and a nightmare for South Sudan. The partition that was supposed to bring peace to an area that had known only war, failed to deliver its promise to the people.
Before reaching independence in 2011, South Sudan was part of the whole of Sudan. Since before colonial times, a deep divide had existed between the predominantly Muslim, Arabic-speaking north and majority Christian south. The divide began to turn violent in the 1950s shortly after Sudan gained independence from both British and Egyptian colonial rule. At the time, positions of power were given entirely to Northerners, and the Sudanese government in its capital, Khartoum, increasingly centralized around a very small group of elites.
A predatory government emerged, serving only to enrich its members by seizing natural resources and ignoring the desperate needs of the Sudanese people. Leading to even the formation of a genocide that continues today in the western region of Sudan, Darfur, where the government has perpetuated systematic ethnic cleansing, and violence against the Darfuri people. Southern and Northern Sudan, two halves of a divided country, fought for decades in a civil war that ended in 2005 with an agreement allowing the south to self-govern called “The Comprehensive Peace Agreement”. This is where the idea of the possibility for South Sudan to officially vote to break away from Sudan, emerged.
With the help from the UN, USA and most of the international community, the vote was held in January 2011, with an overwhelming majority of 99% of Southern Sudanese people voting for the creation of an independent state. It is here, before the reality of an independent nation had really begun, and before the newly found violence began, that a day prior, on July 8th 2011, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously for Resolution 1996, that allowed the establishment of the mission in South Sudan for a single year. Today, the mission marks more than thirteen years. It is the violence that ensued in the weeks, months and years after the partition, that has allowed UNMISS to remain in South Sudan till this day, and plan to until at least April 30, 2025.
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