South Sudan! We Grieve Over You, But Louder Do The Foreigners, Why? A Response To The Call Of The Troika For Peace And Reversal Of The Course

By Yuanna R.J Chany

South Sudan, Dec 19/2025

The statement issued by the Troika countries, comprising the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway, has awakened not only the West but also us, the citizens of the South. It was a call for the reversal of the course, reverting to the agreement, and a call for an end to the suffering of the Southerners. It was a cry for the suffering of the South Sudanese to be heard by its own leaders, not neglected. Though their letter was filled with a kind of raw, hard truth, stinging honesty that we usually only whisper in hiding, it’s not new, but our hearts normally speak them in the middle of the night, when silence is the norm, and no one can be heard. They mentioned our broken promises (Peace Agreements), our misuse of oil wealth, but painfully, the unpaid salaries of civil servants, mostly teachers who go to work on empty stomachs, which is shocking and heartbreaking.

They wept, but most of us rejoice in the suffering of our own people. They spoke of their grief, not for their own communities, families, but for a community they have no citizenship status in. They grieve for us and say, “Enough is enough,” for people whose leaders say, “We should fight and turn this Country into ashes.” Enough is enough, is what we miss in our Country. Oh, how I long to hear such a missing cry from our own leaders and communities. We long for this cry of “enough is enough,” not from foreign countries, but from our own people and those whom we call leaders. Dear fellow countrymen and women, if the world could cry, cry, cry, and cry. Why not us? Oh people. Why not us? Oh, our leaders.  Why? Oh God, we are helpless. Help us to realize the need for “Enough is enough.” Foreigners cry for our suffering, and they say enough is enough, why not us? The world is sick because of our grief or anguish. They are tired of funding refugees, POCs, and even the host communities. When are we to know this?

Most of the time, one question hunts me down in every second of my breath; if an official in a cool, well, and Wifi oriented office in Washington DC, or London can weep for our children, our orphans, our widows, our mothers, our fathers, and our disabled persons, what in the world did our hearts cry for in South Sudan? Position? Or wealth? Why are our hearts grown so quiet in the suffering of our own beloved community? Why do we not weep for peace and reverse the course, oh leaders?

One thing I have discovered, whether from the leaders or from us, the citizens, we have become silent mourners. We see the statistics of our armed forces killing themselves, children burned, denial of education, millions facing starvation, and hundreds of thousands displaced, even in this very year alone, to POCs and Refugees camps, but still statistics don’t have faces in our country. Today, let me remind us that we need to remember these faces.

• It's the face of a mother in Malakal, Bentiu, Pibor, East Equatoria, Ruweng, Tony, Wau, and Junglei, clutching a plastic tarp because her home became desolate, and her home became a war zone for his own children.
• It is the face of an orphan who seeks for a home, but finds none, rather than the street.
• It is the face of a student who wants to build a country but sees only the path of tribalism, hatred, division, and the gun.
• It is the face of a lost child seeking the whereabouts of his parents, but he/she gets only the news that they are no more.
• It is the face of a father in Juba, Wau, Awiel, Warap, Unity State, Malakal, Yambio, Torit, Bor, Greater Pibor, Ruweng, or Rumbek who looks at his hands, strong and ready to work, but still finds no jobs because of insecurity, or because the economy is just a phantom.

The Troika paints a grim picture of 2018’s failed dreams, but we as South Sudanese live that picture every morning when we wake up. We saw the horrors of 2013 and 2016 atrocities; families were consumed or divided, the community cited tribalism, and children on the street searching for homes that were never homes any longer. We smelled the dark smoke in the sky and buried our own brothers and sisters. Yet here again, we are watching the clouds of war gather while our leaders reshuffle seats on a sinking sand or ship.

To us at the moment, fear is a heavy blanket, and I understand why many of us chose to be silent. We think by remaining silent, we are free, but we never knew that it’s never an excuse that we are not part of the suffering of our Country. To you who are silent when evils are being imposed on voiceless people, silence is never the solution, but still you are endorsing those evils deed, the suffering orphans and fatherless, who have no means of escaping to nearby neighboring countries. If we choose to remain silent when evil deeds are celebrated, we are not only fearing but have choose the same cycle of evil. This is magnified by the fear of the knock at the door, the detention centre, the "unilateral reshuffle” that might cost us our dear lives or positions. But still, brothers and sisters, look at our children suffering in POCs, Refugee Camps, and even in their own homes. For orphans, the street that is looked after by them, as where they will find food, is never a dream come true for them. They were hungry, and most of them died. Is this what we call a good silence? Are we more afraid of a prison cell than we are of the future where our children inherit nothing but our grudges and our hunger? South Sudan! We grieve over you, but louder do the foreigners.

To our leaders, both signatories to the peace agreement, when you look at the maps of the "escalated violence,” do you see “strategic zones,” or do you sees the blood of your communities, their children, mothers, fathers, nephews, and cousins? The Troika is asking you to reverse the course, but we, your people, are begging you to remember that you are fathers and grandfathers before you are generals. This suffering of the South Sudanese is not a curse to be embraced, but a plague that can be reversed if we can choose love, unity, and reconciliation over division and tribalism. We cry for the reversal of the course, right now, not tomorrow, but today. We need peace to be implemented, and people go back home from Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda and etc, to South Sudan, the home for the Southerners. Though food has become something that silences most of us, to you, my fellow citizens, our grief must cease from being a private burden, but a public force that can be seen. To be sincere, tribal, divisive, or hate-filled loyalty is a poison in your arena or heart if it asks you to ignore the suffering, hunger, death, insecurity, lack of school of your neighbor because they speak in a different language.

Conclusion

We need true peace, and that true peace should only come from within us, not external pressures or threats, if it is to be genuine. Though the Troika promises to invest in us, if we show them peace, it should not be the goal that drives us to peace. It is the suffering of our own orphans, widows, women, and fathers who are suffering that should lead us to peace. It is the suffering people in the refugee Camps. It should be people in the POCs who feel insecure in their home but trust foreign aid for their safety and lives. We shouldn't seek peace for their investments, but we should seek it so that a grandmother, father, and a child can finally sleep through the night without listening to the sound of gunfire or a child thrown out by her parents while they are banished in a burned hut.

Dear leaders, it’s our love for you that enables you to be in power. It is because children have joined your vision. It is because our community has accepted your mission. Truth is, anyone who has a human heart can cry, and in that line, we all cry at night, both leaders and every citizen, for this suffering. Here is one thing that wakes me up at night, and I hope it is for everyone: if outsiders can cry for us, cry for our own community, our loved ones, our own people of the South, why don’t we let our hidden tears wash away the lines of hostility? Why are we not choosing peace over positions? It is a time to fight for peace and tranquility, not for a party or tribe, but for the simple, beautiful right to grow old in the land at peace. South Sudan! We grieve over you, but louder do the foreigners, Why?