Is South Sudan on the brink of civil war? Possibly. But another trend is also in the making: despite his nice words about the 2018 power sharing peace agreement, South Sudan’s president Salva Kiir has been repressing dissenting voices and is ruling his country in a way that increasingly mirrors how Sudan is run. Under his leadership, the ‘youngest country in the world’ is also getting closer to Russia and the United Arab Emirates. It remains to be seen whether this strategy can prevent the return of interethnic violence and civil war. Hence the importance of efforts to restore dialogue between the parties to the 2018 peace agreement.
Research line: Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa
Source image: © Staton Winter (UN Photo)
