South Sudan

The world's youngest country, independent in 2011 and at war with itself within thirty months. The south of Sudan was sealed off by the British Southern Policy, its schooling handed to Christian missions working in English while the north was governed in Arabic, and it entered independence in 1956 with almost no infrastructure and a mutiny already begun. Two civil wars followed, from 1955 to 1972 and from 1983 to 2005, the second under John Garang's SPLM, together killing perhaps two and a half million people. Oil found in the border regions raised the stakes for both sides. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 promised a referendum, and in January 2011 the south voted to separate by about ninety-nine per cent. Independence came on 9 July. Garang had died in a helicopter crash in 2005, and the rivalry between his successors Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, running along Dinka and Nuer lines, broke into war in December 2013. Around three-quarters of the country's oil revenue must be paid to Sudan for pipeline access to the sea. Juba is the capital. It holds the Sudd, one of the world's largest wetlands. The country has about eleven million people and over sixty ethnic groups. English is the official language, with Juba Arabic widely spoken. Cattle are central to Dinka and Nuer social life and to its conflicts. It is one of the least urbanised countries in the world. Boma and Bandingilo hold one of the largest land mammal migrations on earth. The country has almost no paved roads outside the capital.

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