Background & Context

South Sudan is one of the most diverse, yet poor and least-developed countries in the world. The root cause of modern day Sudanese conflicts is its complicated history. 

The cultural and developmental differences between North and South Sudan can be traced back to the end of the 19th century, when the North adopted British Colonialism while the South rejected it. Even after independence from Britain in 1956, the religious and cultural differences between North and South Sudan made it difficult for the two to unify. The North, consisting of a majority white Muslim population, tried to impose Sharia law, which the majority black Christian population in the South rejected, leading to The First Sudanese Civil War. In 1983, a decade after this first war had ended, the Sudanese government tried to impose the same Islamic law again, leading to one of the longest civil wars in history – lasting for 22 years, resulting in more than 2.5 million deaths, and close to 5.5 million displaced (Tonleu).

Abeny Kucha was one of the 5.5 million displaced.

This number represents one of the largest refugee crises in the world. As of July 2018, there were about 2.5 million South Sudanese refugees, with another 2.9 million displaced within the country. Over 60% of these are children, and Ethiopia takes in a large number of these refugees as South Sudan’s eastern border, wherein these people live in camps. The camps, though much better and safer, still have their own issues, like water shortages and missing sewage infrastructure leading to infections. In South Sudan, issues such as famine, poverty, a severe lack of healthcare and oppression, have all become a dastardly norm (Tonleu). 

Kucha’s story is indeed the story of a multitude of Sudanese migrants – a shocking and shameful truth for humanity.