'They come from South Sudan, the newest country in the world.'

When South Sudanese athlete Santino Kenyi marches into Rio's Maracanã Stadium for the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games, his parents will have to wait to hear about it.

The 16-year-old's mother and father don't have a TV, let alone a radio, in their rural village in the country's Central Equatoria region.

"Someone will tell them," Santino says, speaking of himself and his country's historic arrival on the world's greatest sporting stage. "But they are very proud of what I am doing," he adds.

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South Sudan, the world's newest nation, will raise its flag for the first time at an Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August.

The northeast African country gained independence from its northern neighbour, Sudan, in 2011 after decades of civil war.

"I'm proud because I'm going to represent my own country. Not another person's country, it's my own country," says Santino in the capital, Juba.

The 1500 and 800 metre track specialist is deferring his final year of senior school to focus on training.

"I have been dreaming of going to Olympics since when I was young," he says.

Santino lives in Juba with fellow athlete David Gonji Taban, 20, who runs in the 10,000 and 5000m track events.

Taban's worn but well looked after training and track shoes are neatly stored under the desk in a cramped bedroom that sleeps three. A few athletics medals hang on the wall.

"For shoes, you struggle," he says; "you train with it and when it get finish you struggle to get another one."

The athletes say poor training facilities, even worse roads, scorching heat, humidity, dust and dangerous traffic are all part of the struggle to train at professional level in the economically crippled country.

And with Juba at only 550 metres in altitude, the athletes are at a disadvantage to their elevated neighbours in Ethiopia and Kenya - both famous for their distance runners.

But the greatest obstacle has been the country's latest civil war.

Now in its third year, the ethnic schism has killed tens of thousands and displaced over two million people.

The secretary general of South Sudan's Olympic Committee, Tong Chor Malek Deran, laments matter of factly that you can't train "when there are some flying bullets.

"Some of them [athletes] were wounded in the war by crossfire," he told Fairfax Media. "Some of them left the country. It affected the training."

Santino and Taban live in Juba's Gudele neighbourhood which, in the first days of the war in December 2013, saw door-to-door searches and mass ethnic killings.

"When the conflict started you could not even go outside", says Taban, who hid under his bed during while fighting raged in the streets.

The warring parties signed a peace agreement in August last year but sporadic clashes continue around the country.

Even today, about 28,000 Juba residents hide in a United Nations-run Protection of Civilians site just outside of the capital.

South Sudan was recognised by the International Olympics Committee in August 2015, becoming the Games' 206th recognised territory after Kosovo.

The recognition came too late to qualify for most of the Summer Olympic events, so only a track team will go as entry to those events are based on passing test times, says Tong.

A yet-to-be-decided team of six to eight track athletes will be sent to compete in Rio, a big undertaking for an impoverished, war-torn country. Two are Australian-South Sudanese athletes from Brisbane and Perth.

"We are going to Rio with the intention to expose our athletes, but we are aiming at 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games whereby we'll come with our full strength [team]," says Tong.

"People will be surprised. Where do these people come from? They come from South Sudan! The newest country in the world."