History repeating as war-torn South Sudan faces famine

Civilians have been massacred, patients murdered in hospitals and churches, and entire towns including key oil-producing hubs have changed hands several times.

It is a grim repeat of war two decades ago -- before South Sudan split from the north -- when rebels battling the Islamist government in Khartoum also split along ethnic lines to fight among themselves.

"There are horrible similarities with then and now, and it is clear there is a famine looming," Moszynski said, speaking from oil-rich Unity state, one of the hardest-hit areas.

Nearly four million people or a third of the country face "dangerous levels" of hunger, with 50,000 children facing death from malnutrition, the UN has said, calling the hunger crisis "the worst in the world".

- Unfinished business -

Families with malnourished children wait to receive treatment at the Leer Hospital, South Sudan, on  …

Machar led a 1991 coup against rebel commanders, a war within a war that lasted over a decade, before striking a deal that would see him become vice-president of the world's youngest nation at independence in 2011.

Exactly how renewed fighting began this time is disputed. Machar denies that he attempted a coup and claims Kiir tried to purge opponents.

"The result has been the same type of ethnic conflict which came about in 1991 only worse, and the development of the new nation has been set back by years," said John Ashworth, who has worked with churches in South Sudan for three decades.

Communities have split between Kiir's powerful Dinka, the largest tribe, and Machar's Nuer, the second largest.

The UN has been unusually blunt as to who is to blame. Aid chief John Ging has called the "man made" crisis the result of "a political disagreement between two powerful individuals."

Riek Machar, South Sudanese rebel opposition leader, speaks during a press conference at in Addis Ab …

Many aid workers fear famine zones could be declared as soon as late August, with parts of Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile states at highest risk.

Famine implies acute malnutrition in over 30 percent of people, and at least two deaths per 10,000 people every day.

Skeletal children are already being seen.

"It is so depressing," said Vincent Hoedt, who worked for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) during the late 1990s drilling water pumps, and this month returned from the war-ravaged town of Bentiu, where 40,000 civilians shelter behind the razor wire fences of a UN peacekeeping base.

"The sad cycle of seemingly endless war continues, even if that has been broken by moments of quiet and of happiness," he said. Even in areas where there is peace, he added, mud tracks are swamped by torrential rains.

A child suffering from severe malnutrition is assisted by staff at a medical camp in Minkamman, Sout …

Slow-moving peace talks were due to restart on Wednesday in luxury hotels in Ethiopia, but previous ceasefire deals have repeatedly collapsed.

Moszynski recalled how he'd hear at night the howls of hyenas, who would grab babies from mothers too weak to fend them off.

Today he is "kept awake by gunshots".

- Few lessons learnt -

The UN is again flying in food and aid at enormous cost. The International Committee of the Red Cross is air-dropping food for the first time since the war in Afghanistan in 1997.

Sudanese soldiers patrol the Daldako area, northeast of South Kordofan's state capital Kadugli,  …

Tens of thousands are reported to have died in the Sudanese crisis of 1993 -- which came just five years after a famine in which some 250,000 died -- mainly in regions straddling tribal boundaries between Nuer and Dinka.

Famine was again declared in 1998, when some 70,000 people died.

The traumatic photograph of baby and vulture -- which won South African photographer Kevin Carter a Pulitzer Prize, reportedly a factor in his suicide soon after -- was taken in 1994 in the village of Ayod in Jonglei.

Much has changed in South Sudan: most importantly, the rebels are now battling their own government in Juba.

But old reports seem fresh today.

Workers store bags of food to be distributed at a UN-run mission site on June 26, 2014 in Tomping, S …

In a prescient warning, Human Rights Watch in 1993 called on both sides to "correct their own abuses or risk a continuation of the war on tribal or political grounds in the future."

Then as now, both sides were accused of war crimes, including massacres, torture, rape, targeting civilian populations and recruiting child soldiers.

Today, teacher turned refugee James Tut, who fled to Kenya in January, has little hope.

"This is not a case of those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it," Tut said.

"The problem here is that our leaders simply don't care."

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• southern Sudan
• Riek Machar
• famine

Source http://news.yahoo.com/history-repeating-war-torn-south-sudan-faces-famine-115224620.html