Juba, 17 February, 2024 / 8:55 pm (ACI Africa).
More than a year after Pope Francis visited South Sudan and urged people to put a stop to the bloodshed and violence, the country is still plagued with high levels of violent crime and armed conflict between ethnic groups.
During the first week of February 2023, the Holy Father made a historic visit to South Sudan. While visiting the Christian-majority country, he called for unity among the nation’s Christians in efforts to promote peace at an ecumenical gathering with the Church of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and General Assembly of the Church of Scotland Moderator Iain Greenshields.
“Those who choose Christ choose peace, always; those who unleash war and violence betray the Lord and deny his Gospel,” the pope said at the time. “What Jesus teaches us is clear: We are to love everyone, since everyone is loved as a child of our common Father in heaven. The love of Christians is not only for those close to us but for everyone, for in Jesus each person is our neighbor, our brother or sister — even our enemies.”
The pope’s call for peace has not quelled the violence in South Sudan, which has been unstable since the country gained independence from Sudan in 2011. South Sudan, which is the world’s youngest country, is home to more than 60 ethnic groups. The two largest are Dinka, which accounts for more than one-third of the country’s population, and Nuer, which is about half that size.
A considerable amount of the violence in South Sudan stems from conflicts between those two ethnic groups, which vie for political power in the country as well as access to resources like water and cattle. Tensions between the two groups sparked a six-year civil war in 2016. Although a peace deal was reached in February 2020 through the creation of a unity government, violence still flares up, particularly through cattle raids.
