Nearly a month after fighting erupted in the capital, Juba, pushing nearly 200,000 people from their homes, the political power struggle between loyalists of President Salva Kiir and his ex-deputy Riek Machar rests on a knife’s edge, threatening to spiral into a deadly ethnic conflict. The world welcomed South Sudan’s birth in July 2011, but if thousands of peacekeepers and pressure from superpowers can’t influence a truce at the negotiating table in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it may end up lamenting its tragic collapse.
– Andrew Katz
Crisis in South Sudan: The World’s Youngest Nation Struggles to Survive
Phil Moore / AFP / Getty Images
People stand at the gates of a spontaneous camp for internally displaced persons at the United Nations Mission to South Sudan base in Juba, South Sudan, on Jan. 9, 2014. Over 17,000 people are living at the base, with new arrivals every day, due to ongoing conflict in the world's youngest nation.
