Brewing conflict with Sudan in the north, and Joseph Kony's LRA in the south, are just two of South Sudan's challenges. Nonviolent Peaceforce is working to protect the population, especially women and children, from these and other threats.
With the threat of armed conflict with Sudan on its northern border, and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) raiding its southern border, the new country of South Sudan – formed only last year – is facing a hard task in finding the peace it so desperately needs.
Skip to next paragraphNonviolent Peaceforce is quickly becoming a growing presence there among the international nongovernmental organizations trying to help. In just three years the Brussels-based NGO has grown to 65 people based in eight field sites around the struggling East African nation.
On the southern border with Uganda Nonviolent Peaceforce is working to assist those who flee from the LRA and those who live within striking distance of its forces.
RELATED: 7 excellent books about Kony and the LRA
Some of those conscripted into the LRA "have been gone for many years," says Tiffany Easthom, country director for Nonviolent Peaceforce in South Sudan in a phone interview. "We help them track their families."
The LRA's influence seems to be waning in South Sudan, she says.
"They're very fragmented now," Ms. Easthom says. "They are a lot smaller and more disbanded than they used to be. Basically, at this point they're attacking for their own survival. They're looking for supplies, primarily food. They do some recruiting [but] nothing on the scale it was in the past."
Attacks on border villages are "fairly predictable," she says, often tied to crops ripening for harvest. "They'll attack for food," she says.
So far none of the Nonviolent Peaceforce workers in South Sudan have been captured or harmed. Its workers constantly build good relationships with community and government leaders, the military, police, and even cattle keepers, who in South Sudan are armed groups themselves.
"Our first rule of operation," Easthom says, "is that we can't offer protection to others if we can't keep ourselves safe.... We work on safety and security every day."
Nonviolent Peaceforce, whose mission is to foster dialogue among parties in conflict and provide a protective presence for threatened civilians, also works in Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
In South Sudan, it is present at a refugee camp just a few miles from the northern border with Sudan.
"There's been a steady increase in the fighting" along the Sudan border, she says. It looks like there is going to be "an actual armed battle" to control oil fields on the South Sudan side of the border.
"The tensions around that area are really heightening," Easthom says. "There's no declaration of war, but there are acts of war....The next six to eight weeks are going to be quite tense" until the rainy season arrives to restrict the movement of heavy equipment, such as tanks, she says.
One of Nonviolent Peaceforce's roles at the refugee camp has been to help children who've come across the border from Sudan unaccompanied by parents. Sometimes this happens when teachers flee Sudan with their students. Other times children become separated from their parents.
Nonviolent Peaceforce helps protect them in the camp, as well as helps them document their identities and assists in trying to trace their families.
It also helps women refugees of all ages learn how to live in the camps – "how do they raise alarms, how do they go get water, how do they go to the marketplace without being vulnerable," Easthom says. In some cases, it can help them move away from the camp and farther from the border.
The international humanitarian response to the situation in South Sudan has been "very strong," she says. But the challenges of building a new country in the midst of poverty and conflict, and with a population that is largely uneducated, are daunting. "It's a little bit like the Stone Age meets the 21st century."
Even ending the region's wars will not solve everything.
"The reality is that peace is as complicated as conflict," she says.
• Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.
Newer articles:
- Rare air strike in Abyei injured one: UN - The Daily Star - 07/04/2012 12:00
- The woes of indecisiveness in the Republic of South Sudan! - Sudan Tribune - 07/04/2012 08:31
- Machar says independence of South Sudan “prophetic” - Sudan Tribune - 07/04/2012 08:31
- Sudan, South Sudan to hold postponed summit: AU - Chicago Tribune - 07/04/2012 03:13
- Sudan, South Sudan to hold postponed summit - AU - Reuters Africa - 07/04/2012 01:54
Older news items
- ONGC discontinues oil production in South Sudan - Business Standard - 06/04/2012 20:42
- South Sudan: As civilian disarmament takes place, UN urges respect for human ... - UN News Centre - 06/04/2012 18:00
- 700000 to be evicted from Sudan Easter Sunday - OneNewsNow - 06/04/2012 18:00
- South Sudan: MSF Closing Kala Azar Emergency Project in South Sudan - Doctors Without Borders - 06/04/2012 16:56
- Many South Sudanese unable to return home - Washington Post - 06/04/2012 12:00
Latest news items (all categories):
- South Sudan needs ‘civic education’ before elections, says bishop - 16/01/2025 16:42
- South Sudan parties set to resume peace talks in Kenya - 16/01/2025 16:39
- Abandoned but not forgotten – the invisible crisis in South Sudan - 16/01/2025 16:35
- The SAF has committed barbaric atrocities against South Sudanese refugees in Wad Medani - 16/01/2025 16:27
- Syria 2025: The historical Syrian project: From revolution to a modern inclusive civil state - 16/01/2025 16:10
See also (all categories):
Random articles (all categories):
- UN peacekeepers step up patrols after deadly clashes in South Sudan - 11/02/2021 02:08
- Bethlehem photography exhibit highlights founding of South Sudan - The Express Times - LehighValleyLive.com - 09/04/2012 11:00
- GSDF troops told to carry loaded weapons during S. Sudan mission - 23/04/2018 03:52
- South Sudan needs sound macro-economic policy to tackle crisis: experts - 26/06/2016 21:33
- VIDEO: South Sudan tops fragile state index - 28/06/2014 15:04
Popular articles:
- Who is the darkest person in the world, according to Guinness World Record? - 25/10/2022 02:34 - Read 61545 times
- No oil in troubled waters - 25/03/2014 15:02 - Read 22304 times
- School exam results in South Sudan show decline - 01/04/2012 17:58 - Read 21490 times
- NDSU student from South Sudan receives scholarship - In-Forum - 29/09/2012 01:44 - Read 19052 times
- Top 10 weakest currency exchange rates in Africa in 2023 - 19/07/2023 00:24 - Read 18779 times