War In South Sudan Research Articles

Civil War in South Sudan: Conflict Resolution through Mediation by the African Union

Civil War in South Sudan: Conflict Resolution through Mediation by the African Union

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a transdiagnostic intervention for alcohol misuse and psychological distress in humanitarian settings: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial in Uganda

BackgroundThe war in South Sudan has displaced more than four million people, with Uganda hosting the largest number of South Sudanese refugees. Research in Uganda has shown elevated levels of alcohol misuse and psychological distress among these refugees. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a trans-diagnostic scalable psychological intervention called Problem Management Plus (PM +) to reduce psychological distress among populations exposed to adversities. Our study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the CHANGE intervention, which builds on PM + , to also address alcohol misuse through problem-solving therapy and selected behavioural strategies for dealing with alcohol use disorders. We hypothesise that the CHANGE intervention together with enhanced usual care (EUC) will be superior to EUC alone in increasing the percentage of days abstinent.MethodsA parallel-arm individually randomised controlled trial will be conducted in the Rhino Camp and Imvepi settlements in Uganda. Five hundred adult male South Sudanese refugees with (i) elevated levels of alcohol use (between 8 and 20 on the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test [AUDIT]); and (ii) psychological distress (> 16 on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale) will be randomly assigned 1:1 to EUC or CHANGE and EUC. CHANGE will be delivered by lay healthcare providers over 6 weeks. Outcomes will be assessed at 3 and 12 months post-randomisation. The primary outcome is the percentage of days abstinent, measured by the timeline follow-back measure at 3 months. Secondary outcomes include percentage of days abstinent at 12 months and alcohol misuse (measured by the AUDIT), psychological distress (i.e. depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder), functional disability, perpetration of intimate partner violence, and health economic indicators at 3 and 12 months. A mixed-methods process evaluation will investigate competency, dose, fidelity, feasibility, and acceptability. Primary analyses will be intention-to-treat.DiscussionCHANGE aims to address alcohol misuse and psychological distress with male refugees in a humanitarian setting. If it is proven to be effective, it can help fill an important under-researched gap in humanitarian service delivery.Trial registrationISRCTN ISRCTN10360385. Registered on 30 January 2023.

Interests of IGAD Member States in the South Sudan Peace Process, 2013- 2023

Three civil wars have been witnessed in South Sudan. The first Sudanese Civil war began in 1955 pitting troops from the Central government of Sudan and the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) rebels. This war ended after the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972. The second war began in 1983 and ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between. A referendum in 2011 overwhelmingly voted for the independent state of South Sudan. Two years (2013) after the birth of the South Sudan nation a third civil war erupted. The civil war pitted former Vice-President Dr Riek Machar against the government of President Salva Kirr of South Sudan. The humanitarian crisis and abuse of human rights associated with the civil conflict prompted the international community through regional powers to intervene and restore stability in South Sudan. The war in South Sudan has persisted despite the efforts by IGAD and other players in the peace process. This study this study examines the interests of IGAD member states in the South Sudan peace process between 2013 and 2023. Anchored on the realism theory of international relations this study argued that interests of IGAD member states has tended to slow down the peace process in South Sudan between 2013 and 2023. This study 1takes the form of an explanatory research1design. Purposive and snow balling sampling techniques were used to identify 410 respondents for field interviews. The study purposively identified 385 South Sudanese refugees in Nairobi. A total of 25 other respondents who included; representatives of the warring factions in South Sudan residing in Kenya, IGAD officials, EAC officials and Diplomats from IGAD member states were also interviewed. This study noted that in as much as different players have significantly contributed to the peace process; interveners’ interests have tended to slow down the peace process in South Sudan.

Making it Work: Closing the Inclusion Gap for Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Crises

Abstract Disability inclusion has been firmly established as a human rights issue in humanitarian action. Numerous stakeholders have entered into commitments and designed policies to make their services inclusive and accessible for persons with disabilities. In practice, however, persons with disabilities are still excluded from participating in humanitarian action and cannot access the services they need. Drawing on evidence from the Rohingya refugee response in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh and the civil war in South Sudan, this policy and practice note shows that humanitarians often lack the knowledge and confidence to make their services inclusive for persons with different types of impairments. To anchor disability inclusion in all programmes and operations, it should be treated as a strategic issue. It requires sustainable and reliable funding, capacity development at the individual, organizational and strategic level of the humanitarian response, better coordination, robust and reliable data collection based on quantitative and qualitative assessments, and meaningful participation with organizations of persons with disabilities that represent the diversity of persons with disabilities.

The Relevance of Human Security Approach in Assessing The Causes and Solutions to Food Insecurity in South Sudan (Case Study: South Sudan 2017 Famine)

The Relevance of Human Security Approach in Assessing The Causes and Solutions to Food Insecurity in South Sudan (Case Study: South Sudan 2017 Famine)

Leadership, nation-building and war in South Sudan: the problems of statehood and collective will

Leadership, nation-building and war in South Sudan explores the historical contradictions in the foundation of the South Sudanese state as well as the country's future prospects. The book is based on fieldwork research that the author conducted between 2015 and 2018. With a historical approach, Sonja Theron seeks to explain why ‘South Sudan has not known peace since 1955’ (p. 15). Here, the author is alluding to the reigniting of old political feuds, including the outbreak of the civil war in 2013. Theron revisits the history of conquests, slave trade and the Islamic sentiments that propelled the Mahdist revolt of the late 1880s, which she places in the context of the push for independence, which lasted from 1821 until the outbreak of the Sudanese civil war in 1955. With the support of Christian missionaries and the Anya Nya liberation movement in the 1960s, a South Sudanese political consciousness flourished. The book also illustrates how the shaky foundation of the postcolonial state triggered the emergence of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in 1983, with a broad-based alliance against marginalization. Three decades later, the SPLM invoked the right to self-determination for South Sudan's independence in 2011. Crucially, Theron points to the peace agreements that the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mediated between 2002 and 2018, and their failure to address the root causes of the conflict. According to the author, IGAD sought to accommodate the political priorities of different factions, which allowed them to continue plundering the state and which ultimately worsened the country's underdevelopment and political fragility.

Influence of International Humanitarian Organizations on Food Security Among Rural Communities in Malakal County, South Sudan

Since the outbreak of the civil war in South Sudan in 2013, just 2 years after gaining independence from the larger Sudan, agricultural production and normal livelihood was disrupted for the locals in most affected region.

Ethnicity and Sexual Violence in The Conflict of South Sudan

South Sudan gained independence in 2011 after a much applauded referendum. The euphoria of this accomplishment was beclouded by ethnic conflicts which degenerated into a civil war in December 2013. The aim of this study was to examine the conflict that degenerated into a civil war in South Sudan and orchestrated gruesome sexual violence. In accordance, the study was guided by the following research questions. Why is the civil war in South Sudan said to be an ethnic conflict? How is sexual violence manifesting in the conflict of South Sudan? The instrumentalist theory of ethnic conflict as propounded by Pierre Duhem was adopted as the theoretical framework of this study. The research employed a qualitative method of study. The study found out that South Sudan is a composition of more than 60 ethnic groups but the Dinka, Nuer and to a lesser degree the Murle are the most prominent. Incidentally, the conflicts that have engulfed and devastated all of South Sudan emanated and proliferated from these major ethnic groups. The conflict in South Sudan was characterized by sexual violence such as rape, sexual slavery, sexual torture, sexual mutilation etc. The study concludes that ethnicity is the fundamental causal factor of the conflict of South Sudan that is characterized by sexual violence and other atrocities. The study recommends that South Sudan should harness its rich national heritage of multi-ethnicity for unity in diversity as opposed to the prevailing parochial barbarity of ethnic conflicts.

Conflict Entrepreneurs in Prolonged Civil War in South Sudan

South Sudan has travelled a long and difficult journey in its quest to seek lasting peace which has been jeopardized by multifaceted factors and a multiplicity of actors including state and non-state operatives. Such determinants of internal peace processes, which have stood along the way, have been firmed up by deep and powerful players in this youngest state in Africa. Much clarity on what continues to transpire in South Sudan is grounded on scholarship which accounts for the roles of regional dimensions and international dynamics of conflict and peace processes in Sudan and South Sudan. Literature indicates that ethnonationalism, greed, grievance drivers, the Islamisation of politics when the south was part of the north, and the high-handedness of the Khartoum regime was central in the polarization of the state. We also examine the effect of natural resources particularly oil and militia factions in protracted conflicts in South Sudan. When South Sudan seceded in 2011, the state started from a fluid beginning, with weak institutionalization and the problem of ethnicization of the government and its related agencies. Although the explanations grounded on the conventional understanding of ethnicization of politics and loyalty deficits towards authority are critical, the state as an entity is bound by other activities that it maintains with external agents such as trade entrepreneurs who partly invest and occupy a wide economic space and agendas of wealth creation which informs the regimes economic wellbeing. This subject is understudied especially considering the contemporary peace processes and conflict resolution in South Sudan. In this study, I seek to explain the significance of conflict entrepreneurs in the peace process in South Sudan. Conflict Entrepreneurs consist of diverse actors including entities with commercial interests, MNCs, political elites, and states who directly and indirectly are involved in plundering resources and economic opportunities in civil war-torn South Sudan. The question is: which actors can be regarded as conflict entrepreneurs in South Sudan’s conflict context and why? Second, what roles do these entrepreneurs play in South Sudan’s peace process? Using governmental reports, newspaper analysis, and secondary research, these questions are addressed throughout this paper.

Failed Peace in South Sudan? Exploring Unarmed Civilians and Local Peacekeepers through the Work of Nonviolent Peaceforce

Since the 2013 outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, the conflict has produced orgies of casualties and displacement of millions necessitating a series of mandates of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Yet, humanitarian crises and civilian protection challenges have not been reversed. To address these deficiencies, this article examined methods of the unarmed civilian peacekeeping as local peace formation and infrastructure involving the non-use of weapons for civilian protection as practiced by the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP). Adopting ethnographic strands of Critical Peace Studies and utilisation of participant observations in humanitarian accounts with the NP between 2015 and 2019, our in-depth qualitative fieldwork indicates a potentially effective approach to unarmed civilian protection in the country. Our findings illuminate the limited viability of the UN civilian appointed personnel, while making an argument for the compelling efficacy of unarmed civilian peacekeepers in which those affected by the conflict are themselves empowered in their physical protection, the study further recommends the integration of the NP strategies into the current state of peace operation disarray so the current self-fulfilling prophecy of failed peace in South Sudan can be overturned.

Children's education and parental support in Jewi Refugee Camp, Ethiopia: Unraveling the challenges

AbstractObjectiveIn this study, we examined the situation of parents and caregivers of the refugee children in Jewi refugee camp with the aim of understanding the roles they play in the education of the children.BackgroundEffective educational interventions benefit from parental engagement. This may be particularly the case for refugee children, who typically have had several traumatic experiences during the departure from their home country, while traveling to safer places, and then on arrival to a refugee camp.MethodsA qualitative single case study approach was used to investigate this issue. Refugee primary school students, teachers, school principals, parents, and camp administrators were used as data sources. Individual and group interviews, observation, and document analysis were used to collect the data. Interpretive and narrative approaches were used for data analysis.ResultThe results of the study indicate that parental support for the learning of refugee children was low. The effort schools make to help parents, who themselves have experienced traumatic situations, engage in their children's education was found to be equally low.ConclusionThere was a low level of awareness regarding the value of education, mainly because individuals had endured long periods of war in South Sudan, during which education was devalued and the educational infrastructure was devastated. Lack of awareness on children's right to education is expressed in failure to treat adopted children as equal to biological children. As a result, in this study, parents' engagement in the education of children was low.ImplicationThere is a need to maximize local and international support to refugees to fulfill the basic needs of refugee children and their caregivers. Schools in refugee camps are responsible not only for providing education to students; their work should extend to providing supportive services to parents/guardians in their parenting practices at home. In addition, there should be continued effort to reunite children who are separated from their parents; implement comprehensive parenting strategies; and develop parent education programs.

Relational R2P? Civilian-Led Prevention and Protection against Atrocity Crimes

Abstract The protection of civilians in the context of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is often understood as a practice of ‘saving strangers’. In this article, I argue that such an understanding overlooks the ways that close relational webs can be used as a form of prevention of, and protection from, atrocity crimes. Through an examination of unarmed protection practices in the context of the civil war in South Sudan, I highlight how practices of unarmed, civilian-led protection – performed both by non-governmental organisations (ngo s), and by communities themselves – hinge on the creation and sustaining of close relational webs. Rather than ‘saving strangers’, this ‘relational R2P’ hinges on familiarity as a means of protecting one’s friends, families, and neighbours. Through a lens of relational connectivity, fresh perspectives and opportunities for re-imagining ‘intervention’ in the face of atrocity crimes arise. The article explores potential opportunities, challenges, and limitations for the implementation of unarmed, civilian-based approaches in the context of atrocity crimes.

Protection as connection: feminist relational theory and protecting civilians from violence in South Sudan

The direct protection of civilians from the violence and harms of armed conflict is most often understood in fixed, identity-centred terms: of what protection is, where it is located, of who provides it, who receives it. Such analyses often conceal the relational nature of civilian protection: how it is co-created by actors in and through their relationships with one another and the protection architectures they operate within. In this article, I explore how a feminist relational approach helps to illuminate these underacknowledged dynamics of civilian protection. Using protection of civilians in the context of the civil war in South Sudan as an example, I highlight how relationships shape protection, and how a relational approach can illuminate a richer view of protection actors, action, and spaces. Drawing from the example of United Nations police mass cordon and search activities, I also demonstrate how relationships between peacekeepers and displaced communities are shaped by protection architectures. I argue that a relational approach can illuminate unjust structures, create important opportunities for new research, and assist in questioning and reorienting dominant peacekeeping strategies.

Statebuilding in the Peace Agreements of Sudan and South Sudan

ABSTRACT This article presents a retrospective analysis of the principal peace agreements to emanate from the North–South conflict in Sudan and the civil war in South Sudan. In doing so, it argues that statebuilding practices dating back to the inception of the Sudanese state continue to inform and undermine contemporary efforts to resolve the conflicts in both countries. The article makes a unique contribution by linking the legacy of peace agreements in Sudan and South Sudan to the crises of governance that plague both countries today. In doing so, it seeks to further the discussion on statebuilding as part of a broader strategy of sustainable peacebuilding and transitional justice.

Estranged Political Relationships: Demystifying the Root Causes of Violent Conflicts in South Sudan

The breaking of peace agreements and the subsequent perpetuation of civil war in South Sudan are sustained by the failure to adopt broad interventions addressing the many layers of the conflict. An understanding of the multiple causes of the conflict can form the basis for a successful and durable peace agreement. To investigate why violent conflict persists, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 29 major stakeholders, including conflict parties, mediators, eminent South Sudanese personalities, scholars and civil society leaders. The responses were grouped into five major themes: historical conflicts, estranged political relationships, power struggles, resource control and ethnic violence (not included in this article). The results suggest that estranged political relationships, characterized by fear, anger, bitterness, distrust and the urge for revenge, are born out of historical conflicts that remain unresolved. The ensuing power struggles and ethnic violence are motivated by the estranged political relationships between the top leaders. Dealing with their estrangements, therefore, forms the base from which historical conflicts can be addressed towards lasting agreements and sustainable peace in South Sudan.

When Soldiers’ Survival Became Spiritual: Ugandan Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan war

This paper examines military landscapes as a source of violence, and soldiers’ efforts to deal with this violence by using their spiritual beliefs. The paper reveals how Ugandan soldiers who fought in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan believed that their survival in war was a consequence of their spiritual beliefs in God rather than the mighty power of the gun and their military knowledge. The paper is based on life histories of former Ugandan soldiers drawing on interviews with nine former soldiers. The soldiers encountered the strange terrains and landscapes of armed conflict, whilst enduring scarcity of the basic necessities in war. The soldiers described how the mighty and supernatural powers of the transcendent, as well as the promise of tradition and spiritual belief, were seen as important in understanding their survival in armed conflict. The paper emphasizes the importance of an understanding of spirituality in explorations of the violence of military landscapes.

Stabilization and Local Conflicts: Communal and Civil War in South Sudan

Scholars have long argued that local conflicts need to be integrated into the analysis of civil war and peacebuilding. Yet, systematic research of the linkages between communal violence and civil war is sparse. This contribution connects communal violence research to the stabilization and peacekeeping debate. To further a more systematic analysis of communal conflicts, I distinguish various types and their linkages to civil war and peacebuilding. In South Sudan, large-scale communal conflicts—communal wars—precede the country’s civil war and are likely to succeed it. Their protracted and fundamentally political nature means that they cannot be addressed as ‘local conflicts’ in isolation from national politics and state institutions. I argue that military force may temporarily stabilize a conflict zone but the horizontal linkages between urban and rural communal conflicts and their vertical linkages to national political processes require concerted efforts on the national and the sub-state level to avoid renewed conflict cycles and contribute to lasting stability.

War Breaks Out

Abstract This article seeks to document and analyse violence affecting the provision of healthcare by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its intended beneficiaries in the early stage of the current civil war in South Sudan. Most NGO accounts and quantitative studies of violent attacks on healthcare tend to limit interpretation of their prime motives to the violation of international norms and deprivation of access to health services. Instead, we provide a detailed narrative, which contextualises violent incidents affecting healthcare, with regard for the dynamics of conflict in South Sudan as well as MSF’s operational decisions, and which combines and contrasts institutional and academic sources with direct testimonies from local MSF personnel and other residents. This approach offers greater insight not only into the circumstances and logics of violence but also into the concrete ways in which healthcare practices adapt in the face of attacks and how these may reveal and put to the test the reciprocal expectations binding international and local health practitioners in crisis situations.

Integrating immunisation services into nutrition sites to improve immunisation status of internally displaced persons' children living in Bentiu protection of civilian site, South Sudan.

IntroductionThe protracted war in South Sudan has led to severe humanitarian crisis with high level of malnutrition and disruption of the health systems with continuous displacement of the population and low immunization coverage predisposing the population to vaccine preventable diseases. The study aimed at evaluating the effect of integrating immunization services with already established nutrition services on immunization coverage in resource-constrained humanitarian response.MethodsA community and health facility based interventional study involving integration of immunization into nutrition services in two Outpatient Therapeutic Program(OTP)centers in Bentiu PoC between January-December 2017. The main hypothesis was that inclusion of immunization services during nutrition services both at the OTP and community outreaches be an effective strategy for reducing missed opportunity for immunizing all eligible children accessing nutrition services. Data analyzed using STATA version 15 and bivariate analysis using logistic regression was conducted to identify predictor of missed vaccinations.ResultsIntegration of immunization into the nutrition services through the OTP centres increased the number of children immunized with various antigens and the dropout rate was much lower and statistically significant among children who received immunization at the OTP centers than those in the Primary Health Care Centers (PHC Centers) in the study sites. Children who were vaccinated at the OTP centre in sector 2 were 45% less likely to miss vaccination than those vaccinated at the PHCC (OR: 0.45; 95%CI:0.36- 0.55), p<0.05 while those vaccinated at the OTP sector in sector 5 were 27% less likely to miss vaccination than those vaccinated at the PHCC (OR: 0.27; 95%CI: 0.20 -0.35) p<0.05).ConclusionThis study indicated that immunization coverage improved effectively with integration with nutrition services as a model of an integrated immunization programme for child health in line with the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) and the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy (GIV).

Sudan’s North-South Conflict and Civil War

Purpose: Sudan has been at war with itself following a conflict that has “consumed the country of 34 of its 45 years of independence and remains the only constant factor in a land whose population has repeatedly been devastated. The study sought to establish the Sudan North –South conflict and civil war. Methodology: The research was purely qualitative. Desktop literature review was conducted. Critical analysis of the literature was conducted. Findings: The study found out that the war in Sudan was caused by both economic and non-economic motives. It can be noted from this study that indeed, that war is caused by many factors. However, the most argued about cause of war is the economic agenda. For example, this study hypothetically argues that the economic agenda was a main cause of war in South Sudan. To begin with, the Government of Sudan was interested in the South due to the numerous oil deposits that are located there. That’s why, as observed by Prendergast, the Government of Sudan used helicopters and gunships to displace the southerners from oil rich areas. Consequently, any move towards self-determination would be uneconomical for the Government of Sudan. In addition, the Sudan war can also be described as a war of visitors as various Governments supported the two warring parties. Unique Contributions to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study the study strives to promote academic qualifications and the building of capacities, for an informed academic exchange, intercultural learning and cooperation among researchers in the appropriate academic specializations under which Sudan’s north-south conflict would be best studied and discussed. The study is envisaged as being useful for policy inputs for future relief situations and/or improving the quality of the much needed ‘raw material’ for sustainable conflict management and/or resolution in countries or communities that experience violent conflict situations, which often also demand for humanitarian aid interventions.