As a four-year highly destructive civil war ravages South Sudan leaving thousands dead and millions displaced, the world’s youngest country has today called off its official sixth Independence Day celebrations.
Government spokesperson Michael Makuei announced last month that the troubled country that largely depends on oil, would not hold the celebrations.”Our situation does not require us to celebrate, “he said then.
On July 9 2011, South Sudan seceded from Sudan, giving hope of a brighter future to the mainly animist Southerners. However, two years later in 2013, a civil war that pitted President Salva Kiir against his erstwhile Vice President Riek Machar Teny broke out, and has since spiraled to cause the world’s biggest refugee crisis in recent times, with over a million South Sudanese currently forced out of their homeland.