Nothing to celebrate as South Sudan marks independence

For some, life in the capital of old enemy Sudan -- from which South Sudan won independence in 2011 -- is more attractive.

"I would rather live in Khartoum than South Sudan. I don't want to stay in South Sudan, the security is not good for us Nuer," said another camp resident, 27-year-old Abraham Tut Mayak Kai.

"I feel South Sudanese but I'm not treated as a citizen of this country. At the moment, we're not a country."

- Collapse of a state -

South Sudan was born out of a long and brutal independence struggle with Muslim Khartoum, and finally raised its flag of independence in 2011 to much international fanfare and widespread optimism -- having taken with it the main oil fields and buoyed by international aid.

Zachariah Diing Akol, a researcher with South Sudan's SUDD Institute, an independent think-tank, said the picture today could not be more different than three years ago.

"2011 was the termination of many years of struggle by the South Sudanese for a sense of respect, for a dignified life to live in freedom. People were very excited, people spent the whole night in the streets, it was very powerful," he recalled.

Thousands of people wait for food in the hot sun near the air drop zone in Leer, South Sudan, on Jul …

"The sense of being victorious, the sense of living peacefully, without fear in your own country: that has changed drastically. Many lives have been lost."

Relief agencies say famine will break out within weeks unless there is massive funding for food aid for an estimated four million people -- or nearly half the population -- now dependent on handouts.

"The whole system of justice and law has completely broken down. There's no mechanism for getting justice anymore in the country and particularly in the conflict affected states," said Aimee Ansari of the aid agency Care.

She said in the northern oil-hub of Bentiu, scene of some of the worst fighting, people are walking "for hours and hours and days" just to get a meal.

The International Red Cross, meanwhile, has been forced to charter cargo planes to airdrop relief supplies and keep isolated groups of refugees alive.

"It's really the last resort," Franz Rauchenstein, ICRC head in South Sudan, told AFP, warning of "alarming signs" of malnutrition.

- Peace talks a farce -

While millions battle hunger, thousands and possibly tens of thousands have already died -- cut down by machine-gun fire while hiding in swamps, massacred in homes, churches and even hospitals, or lynched by their neighbours because of their ethnicity.

"The conflict has at times seen horrific levels of violence," said Raphael Gorgeu, South Sudan chief for Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF). "Patients have been shot in their beds, and lifesaving medical facilities have been burned."

Despite warnings of war crimes charges, threats of sanctions and flying visits by diplomatic heavyweights Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry, both Kiir and Machar appear immune to pressure and determined to fight it out.

Peace talks have been in progress since the start of the year in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, but successive ceasefire deals have failed to stick, and the talks have occasionally bordered on the farcical.

At one point the two sides halted the talks because they were unhappy with the venue, Addis Ababa's opulent Sheraton hotel. The talks recently hit further trouble when the government boycotted the talks after a regional peace mediator accused both sides of "stupidity" for carrying on the war.

"The two sides are still not interested, at least it seems to me, in a settlement very soon," said Akol of the SUDD Institute. "There is still a belief that this war is winnable."

• Politics & Government
• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• South Sudan
• Riek Machar

Source http://news.yahoo.com/nothing-celebrate-south-sudan-marks-independence-031529897.html