South Sudan At 15: How The Political Elite Have Found A Way To Profit From Peace As Well As War

Juba, the capital of South Sudan. Wikimedia Commons

BY MARTIN BENSON STROHMAYDER

RESEARCH FELLOW AND SUDANS RESEARCH

DIRECTOR, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011 was meant to close the chapter on one of Africa’s longest civil wars: the north-south war that preceded it. Formally, it did. But independence did not end the deeper struggles over power, revenue and coercion inside the newly independent state.

South Sudan returned to war in 2013, watched a 2015 settlement collapse, and now lives under a 2018 Revitalised Agreement whose promised transition has been postponed repeatedly.

This is usually told as a story of failed peacemaking, with too many spoilers and too little political will. But what if these deals are not failing so much as working? What if they stabilise order precisely by preserving the systems that make violence profitable?

Political settlements theory helps explain why peace agreements often focus on dividing power, offices and resources among elites. The hope is that if rival leaders receive a share of power, offices and resources, they will have less reason to fight. But negotiated transitions can also carry wartime systems into peace. The question, then, is not only who gets a share of the state, but what kinds of war economies, revenue systems and coercive practices are being preserved.

As an economic historian of war and peace, I have spent more than a decade tracing how rulers in South Sudan and Sudan raise money, goods, labour and other resources, and how payment is enforced through soldiers, officials, checkpoints and offices. My recent research paper examined how South Sudan’s peace agreements reshaped the country’s systems of revenue, spending and coercion: who could extract resources, who could allocate them, and who could enforce payment.

My analysis drew on 2020-2024 fieldwork and archival, secondary and peace agreement data. I sought to answer three questions: who collected revenue from monetary and non-monetary sources, such as cash, cattle, grain and labour; who paid; and who benefited.

What emerges is that peace settlements have redistributed access to money, offices and external finance among elites, while leaving intact the coercive revenue system and war economies that preceded them. In some cases, peace has formalised those systems by turning wartime access to extraction into recognised office, revenue authority or security control. Violence changes form rather than ending; it recedes from the battlefield and lodges in the revenue systems, security forces and war economies that continue to extract from civilians – now in the name of order.

This is a pattern I call predatory peace.

The same machinery makes the state itself a prize: controlling it is so lucrative that capture remains worth fighting for, and when the power-sharing breaks down, as it did in 2013, the fighting returns. Peace and war become two settings of one extractive machine rather than true opposites.

Similar dynamics have emerged in other resource-rich, conflict-affected states, such as in oil-rich Angola and the mineral endowed Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). South Sudan is resource-rich too, above all because of oil. But the wider issue is not only natural resources. It is the political control of revenue streams such as oil, customs, aid, loans, contracts, checkpoints, timber, charcoal and other forms of extraction.

It’s all part of a wider pattern in peacemaking that has repeatedly paired political deals with economic reforms that entrenched elite control over revenue and other resources.

None of this is inevitable. A different approach would start by treating the whole revenue complex as the heart of peacemaking itself, not as a technical issue to be postponed until after a peace agreement is signed. It would ask who controls money and other resources, including humanitarian and development assistance; who is allowed to extract resources, payments and labour from civilians; and whether people can see anything in return for what they pay.

Peace as ‘organised robbery’ in South Sudan

South Sudan’s national revenue system includes taxes, customs, fees, oil revenues, international loans, aid and off-budget income. It also includes non-monetary extraction, such as cattle, grain, labour and goods taken from civilians. These flows are enforced through soldiers, security forces, government offices and checkpoints. Together, they form what I call a revenue complex: the machinery through which rulers extract the resources that allow them to govern, reward allies and sustain coercive power.

In much of South Sudan, “peace” has reshuffled who profits from the revenue system, not what it does to those who pay. A businessman in Malakal, a city in Upper Nile State, described the tax system as “organised robbery” in which soldiers were overcharging and pocketing the proceeds. He was told that the system had to be endured to “maintain peace”.

Predation was not a breakdown of order; it was a condition of order.

None of this began with the peace process. My peace agreement analysis starts in the early 1970s, but in separate archival research and an earlier round of just over 200 interviews, I traced the territory’s revenue complex back to at least 1899. Across colonial, rebel and independent rule, I found a similar logic: revenue sources were used to secure rulers’ control more than to fund public goods.

Across more than 120 years, changes in government did not dismantle the underlying machinery of extraction and control. Each major political settlement since the 1970s has been laid over that inheritance, reshuffling who profits from it.

Confusion is integral to the system. Traders described being shuttled from office to office to meet fresh demands; collectors themselves spoke of decrees “passed from nowhere” that shifted revenue to other units. A businesswoman in Wau described fierce competition for tax collection posts because of what could be skimmed from them. This is not administrative failure, but a system that works for those who run it. When revenue authority is spread across overlapping offices, no one can be held to account and everyone can be rewarded for their loyalty.

This performance of state finance runs all the way up. In 2012, the president conceded that some US$4 billion in oil money had simply been “stolen”. In 2026, a UN panel of experts found that South Sudan continued to sell oil months in advance of delivery, and that disputes over undelivered oil cargoes and oil-backed debts had reached UK commercial courts.

State budgets perform reform while the money moves elsewhere.

What people get in return

South Sudanese nevertheless do not reject the idea of contributing to public authority. They contrasted community-level payments and contributions, which they could see returning as boreholes, roads or clinics, with state taxation, which they experienced as extraction without return.

Many insisted that paying tax is good, so long as it is reciprocal, transparent and tied to public goods.

The problem is that peace agreements often leave that link severed, even as they formalise new bargains among elites.

What non-predatory peace would require

A different kind of peacemaking would mean taking the following steps.

rebuilding of a transparent, civilian-controlled revenue complex


linking what people pay to what they receive


making external support conditional on genuine revenue reform.


Lastly, South Sudanese civic actors should be supported to monitor the cross-border flows – oil, arms, timber, charcoal, looted goods and finance – that fund fighting.

This work does not fall solely to donors and mediators. People are already documenting where the money goes.

A serious settlement would treat them as central to any peace worth the name.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Sudan’s Civil War: What Military Advances Mean, And Where The Country Could Be Heading Next

A fighter loyal to the Sudanese army patrols a market area in Khartoum on March 24, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

BY CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

A series of advances by the Sudanese military has led some observers to posit that the African nation’s yearslong civil war could be at a crucial turning point.

Even if it were to end tomorrow, the bloody conflict would have left the Sudanese people scarred by violence that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people. But the recent victories by the military do not spell the end of its adversary, a rebel paramilitary group that still holds large areas in Sudan.

The Conversation turned to Christopher Tounsel, a historian of modern Sudan at the University of Washington, to explain what the war has cost and where it could turn now.

Can you give a summary of the civil war to date?

On April 15, 2023, fighting broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF – led by de facto head of state Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known colloquially as “Hemedti.” The RSF emerged out of the feared Janjaweed militia that had terrorized the Darfur region of Sudan.

While the SAF and RSF previously worked together to forcibly remove longtime President Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019, they later split amid a power struggle that turned deadly.

The major point of contention was the disputed timeline for RSF integration into the national military, with the RSF preferring a 10-year process to the SAF’s preferred two-year plan.

By early April 2023, the government deployed SAF troops along the streets of the capital, Khartoum, while RSF forces took up locations throughout the country. Matters came to a head when explosions and gunfire rocked Khartoum on April 15 of that year. The two forces have been in conflict ever since.

To human toll of the civil war has been staggering. As of February 2025, estimates of those killed from the conflict and its related causes, including lack of sufficient medical facilities and hunger, have ranged from 20,000 to 150,000 – a wide gulf that, according to Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond, is partially due to the fact that the dead or displaced are still being counted.

Where is Sudan?

The conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, a number that demographically makes the Sudan situation the world’s worst displacement crisis. Nearly half of Sudan’s population is “acutely food insecure,” according to the U.N.’s World Food Programme. Another 638,000 face “catastrophic levels of hunger” – the world’s highest number.

How have recent developments changed the war?

The SAF has recently scored a slew of victories. At time of writing, the Sudanese military controls much of the country’s southeastern border with Ethiopia, the Red Sea coast – and, with it, Sudan’s strategically important Port Sudan – and parts of the country’s metropolitan center located at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers.

Further, the SAF has reclaimed much of the White Nile and Gezira provinces and broken an RSF siege of North Kordofan’s provincial capital of el-Obeid. In perhaps the most important development, the army in late March recaptured the RSF’s last major stronghold in Khartoum, the Presidential Palace.

Each of these actions indicates that the SAF is taking an increasingly proactive approach in the war. Such positive momentum could not only serve to reassure the Sudanese populace that the SAF is the country’s strongest force but also signal to foreign powers that it is, and will continue to be, the country’s legitimate authority moving forward.

And yet, there are other indications that the RSF is in no rush to concede defeat. Despite the SAF’s advances, the RSF has strengthened its control over nearly all of Darfur, Sudan’s massive western region that shares a lengthy border with neighboring Chad.

It is here that the RSF has been accused of committing genocide against non-Arab communities, and only the besieged capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, stands in the way of total RSF hegemony in the region. The RSF also controls territory to the south, along Sudan’s borders with the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The fact that the SAF and RSF are entrenched in their respective regional strongholds casts doubt on the significance of the military’s recent victories.

Could Sudan be heading to partition?

As a historian who spent years writing about South Sudanese separatism, I find it somewhat unfathomable to imagine that Sudan would further splinter into different countries. Given the current state of affairs, however, partition is not outside the realm of possibility. In February, during a summit in Kenya, the RSF and its allies officially commenced plans to create a rival government.

The African Union’s 55 member states are said to be split on the issue of Sudanese partition and the question of whether any entity linked with the RSF should be accepted. In January, during the waning days of U.S. President Joe Biden’s presidency, Washington determined that the RSF and its allies had committed genocide and sanctioned Hemedti, the RSF leader, prohibiting him and his family from traveling to the U.S. and freezing any American assets he may hold.

Any attempt to entertain partition could be read as an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the RSF and would also create a dangerous precedent for other leaders who have been accused of human rights violations.

In addition to the RSF’s perceived lack of moral legitimacy, there is also the recent precedent of South Sudan’s secession. South Sudan, since seceding from Sudan in 2011, has experienced enormous difficulties. Roughly 2½ years into independence, the nation erupted into a civil war waged largely along ethnic lines. Since the conclusion of that war in 2018, the world’s youngest nation continues to struggle with intergroup violence, food insecurity and sanctions resulting from human rights violations.

Simply put, recent Sudanese history has shown that partition is not a risk-free solution to civil war.

How has shifting geopolitics affected the conflict?

It is important to understand that the conflict’s ripples extend far beyond Sudan’s borders. Similarly, the actions of countries such as the U.S., Russia and China have an impact on the war.

President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing contributions from the U.S. government’s development organization, USAID, has shuttered approximately 80% of the emergency food kitchens established to help those impacted by the conflict. An estimated 2 million people have been affected by this development.

Russian financial and military contributions have been credited with helping the SAF achieve its gains in recent months. Russia has long desired a Red Sea naval base near Port Sudan, and the expulsion of Russia’s fleet from Syria following the fall of President Bashar Assad increased the importance of such a base.

And then there is China. A major importer of Sudanese crude oil, China engaged in conversations to renegotiate oil cooperation agreements with Sudan in October 2024 with the hopes of increasing oil production amid the war. An end to the war – and, with it, protecting the flow of oil through pipelines vulnerable to attack – would benefit both members of this bilateral relationship.

As the war enters its third year, the outlook remains frustratingly difficult to discern.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Sudan’s Generals Battle For 3rd Day; Death Toll Soars To 185

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows a damaged hospital in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday April 17, 2023. The Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary group are battling for control of the chaos-stricken nation for a third day. (Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies via AP)

BY JACK JEFFERY AND SAMY MAGDY

KHARTOUM, SUDAN (AP) — As explosions and gunfire thundered outside, Sudanese in the capital Khartoum and other cities huddled in their homes for a third day Monday, while the army and a powerful rival force battled in the streets for control of the country.

At least 185 people have been killed and over 1,800 wounded since the fighting erupted, U.N. envoy Volker Perthes told reporters. The two sides are using tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons in densely populated areas. Fighter jets swooped overhead and anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies as darkness fell.

The toll could be much higher because there are many bodies in the streets around central Khartoum that no one can reach because of the clashes. There has been no official word on how many civilians or combatants have been killed. The doctors’ syndicate earlier put the number of civilian deaths at 97.

The sudden outbreak of violence over the weekend between the nation’s two top generals, each backed by tens of thousands of heavily armed fighters, trapped millions of people in their homes or wherever they could find shelter, with supplies running low and several hospitals forced to shut down.

Top diplomats on four continents scrambled to broker a truce, and the U.N. Security Council was set to discuss the crisis.

“Gunfire and shelling are everywhere,” Awadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in a southern district of Khartoum.

She said a shell stuck a neighbor’s house Sunday, killing at least three people. “We couldn’t take them to a hospital or bury them.”

In central Khartoum, sustained gunfire erupted and white smoke rose near the main military headquarters, a major battle front. Nearby, at least 88 students and staffers have been trapped in the engineering college library at Khartoum University since the start of fighting, one of the students said in a video posted online Monday. One student was killed during clashes outside and another wounded, he said. They do not have food or water, he said, showing a room full of people sleeping on the floor.

Even in a country with a long history of military coups, the scenes of fighting in the capital and its adjoining city Omdurman across the Nile River were unprecedented. The turmoil comes just days before Sudanese were to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.

The power struggle pits Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the armed forces, against Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group. The former allies jointly orchestrated an October 2021 military coup. The violence has raised the specter of civil war just as Sudanese were trying to revive the drive for a democratic, civilian government after decades of military rule.

Under international pressure, Burhan and Dagalo had recently agreed to a framework agreement with political parties and pro-democracy groups, but the signing was repeatedly delayed as tensions rose over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces and the future chain of command.

The U.S., the U.N. and others have called for a truce. Egypt, which backs Sudan’s military, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — which forged close ties to the RSF in recent years as it sent thousands of fighters to support their war in Yemen — have also called for both sides to stand down.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said late Monday that Cairo was in “constant contact” with both the army and the RSF, urging them to halt the fighting and return to negotiations.

But both generals have thus far dug in, demanding the other’s surrender.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell tweeted that the EU ambassador to Sudan “was assaulted in his own residency,” without providing further details. EU officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Burhan as the aggressor and a “radical Islamist.” Both generals have a long history of human rights abuses and their forces have cracked down on pro-democracy activists.

Heavy gunbattles raged in multiple parts of the capital and Omdurman, where the two sides have brought in tens of thousands of troops, positioning them in nearly every neighborhood.

Twelve hospitals in the capital area have been “forcefully evacuated” and are “out of service” because of attacks or power outages, the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate said, out of a total of around 20 hospitals. Four other hospitals outside the capital have also shut down, it added in a statement late Monday.

Hadia Saeed said she and her three children were sheltering in one room on the ground floor of their home for fear of the shelling as gunfire rattled across their Bahri district in north Khartoum. They have food for a few more days, but “after that we don’t know what to do,” she said.

Residents said fierce fighting with artillery and other heavy weapons raged Monday afternoon in the Gabra neighborhood southwest of Khartoum. People were trapped and screaming inside their homes, said Asmaa al-Toum, a physician living in the area.

Fighting has been particularly fierce around each side’s main bases and at strategic government buildings — all of which are in residential areas.

The military on Monday claimed to have secured the main television building in Omdurman, fending off the RSF after days of fighting. State-run Sudan TV resumed broadcasting.

On Sunday, the RSF said it abandoned its main barracks and base, in Omdurman, which the armed forces had pounded with airstrikes. Online videos Monday purported to show the bodies of dozens of men said to be RSF fighters at the base, strewn over beds, the floor of a clinic and outside in a yard. The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed independently.

The military and RSF were also fighting in most major centers around the country, including in the western Darfur region and parts of the north and the east, by the borders with Egypt and Ethiopia. Battles raged Monday around a strategic airbase in Merowe, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) northwest of the capital, with both sides claiming control of the facility.

Only four years ago, Sudan inspired hope after a popular uprising helped depose long-time autocratic leader Omar al-Bashir.

But the turmoil since, especially the 2021 coup, has frustrated the democracy drive and wrecked the economy. A third of the population — around 16 million people — now depends on humanitarian assistance in the resource-rich nation, Africa’s third largest.

Save the Children, an international charity, said it has temporarily suspended most of its operations across Sudan. It said looters raided its offices in Darfur, stealing medical supplies, laptops, vehicles and a refrigerator. The World Food Program suspended operations over the weekend after three employees were killed in Darfur, and the International Rescue Committee has also halted most operations.

With the U.S., European Union, African and Arab nations all calling for an end to fighting, the U.N. Security Council was to discuss the developments in Sudan. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was consulting with the Arab League, African Union and leaders in the region, urging anyone with influence to press for peace.

At a meeting of the Group of Seven wealthy nations in Japan on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Sudanese “want the military back in the barracks. They want democracy. They want the civilian-led government, Sudan needs to return to that path.”

___ Magdy reported from Cairo.

Pope’s Africa Trip Spotlights Conflict, And Church’s Future

Morning service concludes in the annex of the Cathedral Notre Dame du Congo in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sunday Jan. 29, 2023. The cathedral is being prepared for Pope Francis' visit to Congo and South Sudan for a six-day trip starting Jan, 31, hoping to bring comfort and encouragement to two countries that have been riven by poverty, conflicts and what he calls a "colonialist mentality" that has exploited Africa for centuries. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

BY NICOLE WINFIELD, JEAN-YVES KAMALE AND NQOBILE NTSHANGASE

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is opening a six-day visit to Congo and South Sudan on Tuesday, aiming to bring a message of peace to two countries riven by poverty, conflict and what Francis has called a lingering “colonialist mentality” that still considers Africa ripe for exploitation.

Aid groups are hoping Francis’ trip will shine a spotlight on two of the world’s forgotten conflicts and rekindle international attention on some of Africa’s worst humanitarian crises, amid donor fatigue and new aid priorities in Ukraine.

But Francis’ trip will also bring him face-to-face with the future of the Catholic Church: Africa is one of the only places in the world where the Catholic flock is growing, in terms of practicing faithful as well as fresh vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

That makes his trip, his fifth to the African continent in his 10-year pontificate, all the more important as Francis seeks to make his mark on reshaping the church as a “field hospital for wounded souls” where all are welcome and poor people have a special pride of place.

“Yes, Africa is in turmoil and is also suffering from the invasion of exploiters,” Francis told The Associated Press in an interview last week. But he said the church can also learn from the continent and its people.

“We need to listen to their culture: dialogue, learn, talk, promote,” Francis said, suggesting that his message would differ from the scolding tone St. John Paul II used in 1980 and 1985 when he reminded Congolese priests and bishops of the need to stick to their celibacy vows.


Congo, Francis’ first stop, stands out as the African country with most Catholics hands down: Half of its 105 million people are Catholic, the country counts more than 6,000 priests, 10,000 nuns and more than 4,000 seminarians — 3.6% of the global total of young men studying for the priesthood.

Congolese faithful were flocking to Kinshasa for Francis’ main event, a Mass on Wednesday at Ndolo airport that is expected to draw as many as 2 million people in one of the biggest gatherings of its kind in Congo and one of Francis’ biggest Masses ever.

“There are people who chartered planes to come here because there were so many of them!” marveled Inniance Mukania, who travelled to Kinshasa from the Kolwezi diocese in southern Congo.

On the eve of the pope’s visit, President Felix Tshisekedi met with foreign diplomats in Kinshasa and told them the visit was a sign of solidarity “particularly with the battered populations of the eastern part of the country, prey to acts of violence and intolerance that you are witnessing.”

Jesus-Noel Sheke, technical coordinator of the organizing committee for the papal visit, said nearly everything was ready at Ndolo, where organizers have arranged for 22 giant screens to carry the service live.

“There are only a few decorations left,” he told journalists of the preparations over the weekend. “They will be done the day before.”

The trip was originally scheduled for July, but was postponed because of Francis’ knee problems. It was also supposed to have included a stop in Goma, in eastern Congo, but the surrounding North Kivu region has been plagued by intense fighting between government troops and the M23 rebel group, as well as attacks by militants linked to the Islamic State group.

The fighting has displaced some 5.7 million people, a fifth of them last year alone, according to the World Food Program.

Instead, Francis will meet with a delegation of people from the east who will travel to Kinshasa for a private encounter at the Vatican embassy. The plan calls for them to participate in a ceremony jointly committing to forgive their assailants.

While the people of Goma were saddened that Francis won’t be visiting the east, “we hope with the visit that the pope can bring a message of peace to the people of Congo who need it,” said Providence Bireke, a Goma-based manager with AVSI, an Italian aid group active in the area.

The second leg of Francis’ trip will bring him to South Sudan, the world’s youngest country where continued fighting has hampered implementation of a 2018 peace deal to end a civil war. Francis first voiced his hope of visiting the majority Christian country in 2017, but security concerns prevented a visit and only contributed to worsening a humanitarian crisis that has displaced more than 2 million people.

The South Sudan stop also marks a novelty in the history of papal travel, in that Francis will be joined on the ground by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields.

The aim of the three-way visit is to show a united Christian commitment to helping South Sudan make progress on the implementation of the 2018 accord. Francis presided over a similar joint initiative in 2019 in the Vatican when he famously got down on hands and knees and kissed the feet of South Sudan’s rival leaders, begging them to make peace.

Since then, progress on implementing the accord — in particular creating a unified army comprised of government forces and opposition fighters — has been “painfully slow,” said Paolo Impagliazzo of the Sant’Egidio Community, which has spearheaded an initiative to bring the groups that didn’t sign onto the 2018 accord into the process.

“The visit will bring hope to the people,” Impagliazzo said in an interview in Rome. “And I believe the visit will strengthen the churches — the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, the local church — that are playing a critical role in bringing about peace and dialogue in South Sudan.”

One area of particular concern remains the widespread availability of firearms among the civilian population, which has led to continued fighting in areas as cattle herders seek more land or faction leaders seek to gain more territory, he said.

The Small Arms Survey estimated in 2017 that there were some 1.2 million firearms in the possession of South Sudanese civilians, or 1 for every 10 people. The estimate was believed low and pales in comparison to the number of per capita firearms in Europe or the U.S., but remains an outstanding issue that “will not go ahead until we have the possibility to have a unified army,” Impagliazzo said.

Francis has long denounced the weapons industry, calling traffickers “merchants of death.” In the AP interview, he repeated his condemnation.

“The world is obsessed with having weapons,” Francis said. “Instead of making the effort to help us live, we make the effort to help us kill.”

Kamale and Ntshangase reported from Kinshasa, Congo. Sam Mednick contributed from Dakar, Senegal.

California Storms Persist With Deluges, Mudslide Threats

Flooding from huge amounts of rain are seen in a neighborhood off of Holohan Road near Watsonville, Calif. on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023.(Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

BY CHRISTOPHER WEBER AND STEFANIE DAZIO

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California saw no relief from drenching rains early Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms continued to swamp roads and batter coastlines with high surf, turning rivers into gushing flood zones and forcing the evacuation of thousands in towns with histories of deadly mudslides. At least 14 people have died since the storms began last week.

The storm prompted a few tornado warnings early Tuesday and also was expected to bring heavy snow to the Sierra Nevada a day after dumping up to 14 inches (36 centimeters) of rain at higher elevations in central and Southern California.

After a brief respite, another storm was expected to barrel into the state beginning Wednesday, adding to the misery and further saturating areas already at risk of flooding and debris flows.

The storms threatened coastal and riverside towns and left more than 200,000 homes and businesses without power early Tuesday, according to the website poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. The weather service issued a flood watch through Tuesday for the entire San Francisco Bay Area, along with Sacramento Valley and Monterey Bay. Areas hit by wildfires in recent years faced the possibility of mud and debris sliding off denuded hillsides that have yet to fully recover their protective layer of vegetation.

The storm — the latest extreme weather event to kick off 2023 — was expected to bring enough rain to exacerbate ongoing flooding and heighten the risk of mudslides, forecasters said.

Forecasters also warned southwestern California could see 60-mph (97-kph) wind gusts at the peak of the storm, while some areas could receive rainfall of a half-inch (13 millimeters) per hour.

The death toll from the storms that began last week climbed from 12 to 14 on Monday, after two people including a homeless person were killed by falling trees, state officials said.

California state highway authorities said late Monday night that parts of U.S. and state highways were closed because of flooding, mud or rockslides, heavy snow or car spinouts and truck crashes. The closures included northbound lanes of U.S. 101, a key coastal route, and sections of U.S. 6 and State Route 168.

Evacuation orders were issued in Santa Cruz County for about 32,000 residents living near rain-swollen rivers and creeks. The San Lorenzo River was declared at flood stage and drone footage showed numerous homes sitting in muddy brown water, the top halves of autos peeking out.

A 5-year-old boy vanished in floodwaters Monday on the central coast. The boy’s mother was driving a truck when it became stranded near Paso Robles. Bystanders managed to pull her free but the boy was swept out of the truck and carried away, probably into a river, said Tom Swanson, assistant chief of the Cal Fire/San Luis Obispo County Fire Department.

A roughly seven-hour search for the missing boy turned up only his shoe before officials called it off as water levels were too dangerous for divers, officials said. The boy had not been declared dead, said spokesperson Tony Cipolla of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.

About 130 miles (209 kilometers) to the south, about 10,000 people were ordered to evacuate in Santa Barbara County.

The entire seaside community of Montecito — home to Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities — was ordered to flee on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes in the coastal enclave.

County officials ordered 20 homes evacuated in the area of Orcutt after flooding and a sinkhole damaged up to 15 homes.

Jamie McLeod’s property was under the Montecito evacuation order, but she said there was no way for her to “get off the mountain” with a rushing creek on one side and a mudslide on the other. The 60-year-old owner of the Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary said one of her employees came to make a weekly food delivery and also became stuck.

McLeod said she feels fortunate because her home sits on high ground and the power is still on. But she tires of the frequent evacuation orders since the massive wildfire followed by the deadly landslide five years ago.

“It is not easy to relocate,” McLeod said. “I totally love it, except in catastrophe.”

Ellen DeGeneres shared an Instagram video of herself standing in front of a raging creek near the Montecito home where she lives with her wife, actor Portia de Rossi. She said in the post that they were told to shelter in place because they are on high ground.

“This is crazy,” the talk show host, wearing a hoodie and raincoat, says in the video.

Some miles down the coast another town, La Conchita in Ventura County, was ordered evacuated. A mudslide killed 10 people there in 2005.

In Ventura County, the Ventura River reached its highest level on record at more than 25 feet (8 meters) on Monday. Firefighters using helicopters rescued more than a dozen people trapped on an island in the surging waters. The water level quickly dropped to minor flood stage levels overnight.

The storm also washed 3 feet (1 meter) of mud and rock onto State Highway 126, stranding a long line cars and big-rig trucks. Crews worked into the night to pull them free.

In Los Angeles, a sinkhole swallowed two cars in the Chatsworth area on Monday night. Two people escaped by themselves and firefighters rescued two others who had minor injuries, authorities said.

The National Weather Service warned of a “relentless parade of atmospheric rivers” — long plumes of moisture stretching out into the Pacific that can drop staggering amounts of rain and snow. The precipitation expected over the next couple of days comes after storms last week knocked out power, flooded streets, and battered the coastline.

President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration Monday to support storm response and relief efforts in more than a dozen counties.

Much of California remains in severe to extreme drought, though the storms have helped fill depleted reservoirs.

Associated Press journalists Janie Har and Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco; Amy Taxin in Orange County; Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles; Nic Coury in Aptos; Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz and Haven Daley in Felton contributed to this report.

This Will Be South Sudan’s Hungriest Year Ever, Experts Say

A mother sits with her malnourished baby at a hospital run by Medicines Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Old Fangak in Jonglei state, South Sudan Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021. Aid groups say more people than ever in the country will face hunger this year, because of the worst floods in 60 years as well as conflict and the sluggish implementation of the peace agreement that has denied much of the country basic services. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

BY SAM MEDNICK AND DENG MACHOL

OLD FANGAK, SOUTH SUDAN (AP) — Nyayiar Kuol cradled her severely malnourished 1-year-old daughter as they traveled for 16 hours on a crowded barge to the nearest hospital to their home in rural South Sudan. For months she had been feeding her four children just once a day, unable to cultivate because of disastrous flooding and without enough food assistance from the government or aid groups. She worries her daughter might die.

“I don’t want to think about what could happen,” she said.

Seated on her hospital bed in Old Fangak town in hard-hit Jonglei state, the 36-year-old Kuol tried to calm her daughter while blaming the government for not doing more. Nearly two years have passed since South Sudan formed a coalition government as part of a fragile peace deal to end a five-year civil war that plunged pockets of the country into famine, and yet Kuol said nothing has changed.

“If this country was really at peace, there wouldn’t be hunger like there is now,” she said.

More people will face hunger this year in South Sudan than ever, said aid groups. That’s because of the worst floods in 60 years, as well as conflict and the sluggish implementation of the peace agreement that has denied much of the country basic services.

“2021 was the worst year since independence in the 10 years of the life of this country and 2022 will be worse. Food insecurity is at horrific levels,” said Matthew Hollingworth, country representative for the World Food Program in South Sudan.

While the latest food security report by aid groups and the government has yet to be released, several aid officials familiar with the situation said preliminary data show that nearly 8.5 million people — out of the country’s 12 million — will face severe hunger, an 8% increase from last year. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.

Aid officials say worst affected Fangak county is now as bad as Pibor county was this time last year, when global food security experts said some 30,000 Pibor residents were likely in famine.

During trips to three South Sudan states in December, some civilians and government officials expressed concern to The Associated Press that people were beginning to starve to death.

In October, a mother and her child died in Pulpham village because they didn’t have food, said Jeremiah Gatmai, the humanitarian representative for the government in Old Fangak.

Nearly 1 million people across South Sudan have been affected by the floods, according to the United Nations, which last year had to reduce food aid by half in most places because of funding constraints, affecting some 3 million people.

Two years of floods have prevented people from farming and killed more than 250,000 livestock in Jonglei state alone, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Some displaced families in Old Fangak said ground-up water lilies were their only daily meal. “We eat once a day in the morning and then sleep without food,” said Nyaluak Chuol. The 20-year-old like some others lost her fishing net in the floods. When she has enough money, she pays a boy to fish for her.

Many residents from Jonglei have fled to neighboring states for food and shelter but have found little respite. In Malakal town, some 3,000 displaced people were crammed into abandoned buildings or sheltered under trees with nothing to eat.

“We’re eating leaves and look like skeletons,” Tut Jaknyang told the AP. The 60-year-old has received food assistance just once since fleeing floods in Jonglei in July, he said. He and others said a sack of donated rice had to be shared among 20 people.

North of Malakal in the town of Wau Shilluk, health workers said the number of malnourished children coming into the medical center rose from 10 between January and July to 26 between August and December, according to Christina Dak, a health worker with the International Medical Corps.

While flooding is the main driver of hunger, it’s compounded by government deadlock as the country’s two main political parties try to share power.

Local officials in Malakal aligned with the opposition accused members of longtime President Salva Kiir’s party of undermining them by blocking political appointees and not letting them fire corrupt staff, making it hard to govern and provide services.

“We’re not working as one team. No one’s looking out for the people,” said Byinj Erngst, the health minister in Upper Nile state.

Adding to the political tensions is ongoing fighting between government and opposition-aligned militias in the country’s breadbasket in the southwest.

Government spokesman Michael Makuei said some relief such as medical services continues but there is only so much help that national authorities can give. “The floods have destroyed crops, what can the government do in that case?” he said.

Observers’ frustration is growing. In a speech to the U.N. Security Council in December, the head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, warned of a collapse in the country’s peace deal if all parties didn’t renew their political will.

Jill Seaman, who works in Old Fangak with the South Sudan Medical Relief and has more than 30 years of local experience, concluded: “There are no resources, no harvest, and no cows, there’s no place to look for food.”

Report Says South Sudan Fails To Provide War Victims Justice

In this Friday, Dec. 7, 2018 file photo, women and girls walk back after getting food in Bentiu, a 38 kilometers (24 miles) journey using a path through the bush, for fear of being attacked on the main road, near Nhialdu in South Sudan. South Sudan's government is failing to provide justice for victims of atrocities committed during the country's five-year civil war, Amnesty International said in a new report Monday, Oct. 7, 2019. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)

BY SAM MEDNICK

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN (AP) — South Sudan’s government is failing to provide justice for victims of atrocities committed during the country’s five-year civil war, Amnesty International asserted in a new report Monday.

A lack of political will to hold warring parties accountable for crimes including rape and torture has allowed for widespread impunity, said the report based on 47 interviews with people working in or with the justice sector. It cited a justice system that lacks independence, with prosecutors following orders from above and judges risking being fired if they act against government interests.

“Imagine being witness to the killing of your family, surviving gang rape and, after all that, having your home looted,” Amnesty International regional director Joan Nyanyuki told The Associated Press. If the government is serious about peace, it is obligated under international law and the peace agreement signed last year to provide avenues for justice, she said.

South Sudan is emerging from a conflict that killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions. A power-sharing agreement provides for measures including the establishment of a hybrid court but the government has tried to stall it, the report said.

When investigations do take place, committee members are hand-picked by President Salva Kiir and carried out in secrecy, it said. Reports are often buried and their findings largely ignore crimes committed by the army.

A government-led investigation into sexual assaults in Bentiu last year brought few results as the government denied they had taken place. “Nothing of this kind occurred in Bentiu,” Rabi Emanuel, a government representative, told a meeting in the capital, Juba, early this year.

Legal experts are concerned by the government’s silence.

“Accountability is a key issue and the government needs to pay attention,” said local human rights lawyer Phillips Anyang Ngong.

South Sudan’s government disputed the new report’s findings.

“I don’t think that (Amnesty) report corresponds with the reality in South Sudan. Each time a perpetrator commits a crime the government always takes measures,” said spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny.

Some officials said the country should prioritize stability before it can move ahead with justice.

“Let peace come first and accountability later, we can’t do two things at once,” said Sylvester Sebit, an army intelligence officer.

But the peace deal is on shaky ground. Next month opposition leader Riek Machar is expected to return to South Sudan and again serve as Kiir’s deputy, but key issues such as security arrangements have not been resolved. Some in the international community fear that fighting could erupt again.

Mental health experts say justice is essential in recovering from the trauma of war.

“There’s well-established literature that if there isn’t justice served, recovery from significant trauma becomes a lot more difficult,” said Jairam Kamala Ramakrishnan, a psychiatrist with the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders.

One new project has started to bring justice to a small number of victims at the local level.

Since last year the United Nations, with support from South Sudan’s judiciary, has been holding mobile courts in the towns of Malakal, Bentiu and Rumbek, trying cases including rape, robbery and assault.

“Women who have suffered rape and other serious crimes against them are finally getting justice,” said David Shearer, chief of the U.N. mission in South Sudan.

The initiative will be expanded to other areas over time, the U.N. said.

Yet many other victims await their turn.

In Malakal town, Regina Nateu hung her head. Three years ago her brother was shot and killed by soldiers when he left a U.N. protected camp looking for food, she said. The perpetrators have never been found.

Nateu said she is losing hope.

“People in power can’t do anything,” she said. “Only God can do something to those who killed my brother.”

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UNHCR Welcomes South Sudan’s Accession To International Convention To Protect Internally Displaced

Abraham Bidal, here with his wife Betty and two-month-old child, has been a refugee three times, fleeing to Uganda every time. He noticed less trees on each journey. Image: Michele Sibiloni/UNHCR

KAMPALA JUNE 14, 2019 (UNHCR) -- The United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, welcomes South Sudan’s accession this month to the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, also known as the Kampala Convention.

South Sudan becomes the 28th African Union Member State that has acceded to the Convention, the world’s first and only regional legally binding instrument for the protection and assistance of internally displaced people (IDPs).

“Given the pressing mass displacement challenges facing South Sudan, accession to the Kampala Convention is a significant milestone for the protection and assistance of almost two million internally displaced South Sudanese,” said UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Volker Türk.

More than four million people, including an estimated 1.8 million IDPs, find themselves forcibly displaced from or within South Sudan owing to conflict and violence.

IDPs often face heightened risks, violations and sexual violence because of their displacement, while they struggle to access their rights and basic protection. As a result, they remain in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

For South Sudanese IDPs, housing, land and property issues are also a concern, particularly for women and child-headed families, the majority of whom find their homes destroyed or occupied by others.

Accession to the Kampala Convention is an affirmation by States of their primary responsibility to protect, assist and provide solutions for IDPs. The Convention also calls for national and regional actions to prevent arbitrary displacement, to ensure IDPs are protected and assisted, and to support durable solutions.

To give effect to the provisions of the Convention, countries that accede may need to take further steps for its implementation by passing national legislation.

UNHCR, which supported the African Union, including through the process of drafting the Convention, supports governments in ensuring its incorporation into domestic law. In collaboration with the African Commission on International Law, UNHCR has assisted the development and dissemination of a model law on the Kampala Convention.

Globally, 41 million people remain displaced inside their own countries as a result of armed conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations.

To address internal displacement across Africa and to provide a legal framework for the protection and assistance of IDPs, the Kampala Convention was adopted at a meeting of the African Union (AU) in October 2009. This year marks ten years since its adoption.

The AU is one of UNHCR’s most important partners and a leader in global efforts to resolve forced displacement. Under its watch, landmark treaties on refugees and on internal displacement have been adopted to help millions in Africa and beyond.

The AU has designated 2019 as its “Year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons”, with the aim of promoting durable solutions to forced displacement in Africa.

A series of events are being organised to commemorate the anniversaries of two of its major treaties on forced displacement in Africa: The 50th anniversary of the adoption of the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention, and the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Kampala Convention. These events are being supported by UNHCR and other partners.

UNHCR urges AU Member States who have not yet done so to ratify and implement these conventions.

Mia Farrow Pursues Anti-Hunger Work In South Sudan Visit

Mia Farrow

BY SAM MEDNICK

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN (AP) — Mia Farrow will never forget the day she watched a baby die in her mother’s arms.

“It was a little girl staring at her mother and finally she just stopped breathing. I just moved away and listened to the mother’s cry,” the actress and human rights activist told The Associated Press in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, earlier this month.

She recalled the death as she visited the country again in her new role as envoy for the International Rescue Committee, helping the aid group to promote a global initiative to change the way humanitarian organizations approach malnutrition.

Farrow, who has worked as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, has spent two decades traveling the world and advocating for human rights, especially for women and children.

Crouching in a displacement camp in Juba earlier this month, she jotted notes while listening intently to women express fears about being sexually assaulted and not having adequate shelter for families during the upcoming rainy season.

“I don’t know many people who could endure what they’re enduring,” Farrow said.

As South Sudan emerges from five years of civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, some 1.5 million people are on the brink starvation, the United Nations and South Sudan’s government said earlier this year.

The International Rescue Committee calls the current approach to fighting malnutrition “inadequate,” asserting that it leaves millions of children with acute malnutrition untreated, Mesfin Teklu Tessema, the group’s global senior director for health, told the AP.

“What we’ve seen on the ground, despite everybody’s best efforts, we’re not able to save as many lives as we could,” Mesfin said. With the current approach 50 million children around the world are acutely malnourished and approximately 80% aren’t receiving the treatment they need, he said.

The group proposes treating moderate and severe acute malnutrition as one condition, using a single high-calorie therapeutic food instead of two and delivering aid to families in their homes via trained community health workers rather than making people seek care at a clinic. That can mean walking for days in search of help, Mesfin said.

For the approach to be adopted the U.N needs to agree. The world body remains skeptical.

“There are still a lot of evidence gaps,” Lauren Landis, director of nutrition for the U.N. World Food Program, told the AP. The U.N. wants to be sure the treatment is fully tested and works in a wide range of settings, she said.

Both WFP and the U.N. children’s agency are supporting similar pilot programs, in a few cases partnering with the International Rescue Committee, looking at how to simplify the detection and treatment of malnutrition.

While sending trained community health workers into remote areas is one way of reaching more people, organizations need to weigh the risks and the benefits, one expert said.

“There are a lot of problems with quality, control, monitoring and accountability,” said Sarah Vuylsteke, former deputy head of access in South Sudan. The end goal should remain that everyone is able to access clinics and health care freely, she said.

Having seen the country before and after civil war, Farrow has a clear message for South Sudan’s government as it tries to implement a fragile peace deal signed in September.

“Just stop fighting ... and find a way to peace,” she said. “Peace is the door out of this misery.”

Civilians continue to bear the effects of years of fighting.

In a recent visit to the town of Aweil in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, the AP saw dozens of hungry children swarm large pots of grains during a feeding program.

The program is part of a new initiative launched by UNICEF and WFP with the aim of providing daily meals to 75,000 children at schools across the country.

One of the children, 10-year old Malong Garang Deng, hung his head.

Without school feedings he only eats once a day and sometimes there is nothing at all, he said.

He lifted a frail arm, trying to flex a muscle.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “But I’ve adapted. Even if I can’t eat I can still be strong.”

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In South Sudan, Midwives Bring Down Deaths Despite The Odds

In this photo taken Monday, March 11, 2019, midwife Aber Evaline smiles as she stands beside newborn babies in the ward for premature babies at the Juba Teaching Hospital, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. The country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world but recently, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, maternal health has shown improvement after a concerted effort by the government and partners to dramatically increase the number of trained midwives. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

BY SAM MEDNICK

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN (AP) — Seated in a stifling hallway in South Sudan’s main hospital, the midwife recounted the day she watched a young mother bleed to death after giving birth.

“She died while holding my hand,” said Aber Evaline, hanging her head. Her patient was one of more than 40 women who died in Juba’s Teaching Hospital in 2016 in a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

For every 100,000 live births in South Sudan an estimated 789 mothers die, according to 2015 statistics from the United Nations and the World Bank. Recently, however, despite a civil war that killed almost 400,000 people, South Sudan’s maternal health has shown improvement. By last year deaths in Juba’s Teaching Hospital, regarded as the best in the country, had dropped to 21, said Evaline, one of four midwives there.

The decline is attributed to a concerted effort by South Sudan’s government and partners that began before the civil war erupted in 2013. It has dramatically increased the number of trained midwives from less than 10 when the program started seven years ago to more than 700 today. The project provides scholarships, training and other support for clinics and schools across the country of some 12 million people.

The initiative has made “sexual and reproductive health and rights closer to reality for the women of South Sudan,” Mary Otieno, the United Nations Population Fund’s country chief, told The Associated Press.

The effects are seen outside the capital as well. For three consecutive years clinics serving the displaced persons’ site in Mingkaman registered zero maternal deaths, while the clinic in the U.N.’s civilian protection site in Wau has had zero deaths since it opened in 2016, the U.N. fund said.

Immense challenges remain. While 15% of the government’s budget is meant to be allocated for overall health care, less than 2% is being received, said Felix Lado Johnson, the minister of health for the capital, Juba.

The government estimates that it needs 10 times the number of trained midwives across the country to further reduce the number of deaths. Trained midwives rarely find government jobs, however, leading many to work with international aid groups. State-run hospitals need the midwives’ expertise but often cannot pay them.

Zeitun Abdallah, head midwife at Juba’s Teaching Hospital, said she has not been paid since November.

Compounding the problem is the health care system itself, which already was weak before the civil war.

About 40% of health care facilities remain functional, according to the U.N., and the clinics that do work are poorly equipped.

Juba’s Teaching Hospital has 13 beds in its delivery ward yet about 25 women give birth there daily, according to staff. Mothers and newborns who are meant to be monitored for 24 to 48 hours after birth are discharged after two hours due to a lack of space, staffers said.

At least five babies have died in the past three years from being sent home before they were well enough to leave, according to the hospital’s midwives.

Electricity at the hospital is limited. When the AP visited earlier this month, it had not had power in a week due to broken generators and not enough money to fuel the ones that worked. The only ward with consistent power is the one for premature babies, where solar panels provide electricity for the machines that supply oxygen.

The United Nations Population Fund has appealed for more than $18 million for South Sudan, estimating that 42,000 pregnant women will endure complications during childbirth this year.

As South Sudan faces the next phase of a fragile peace deal signed in September, female leaders are calling for women’s health to be a central issue for the country.

“In this day and age, for you to be producing babies to die and for mothers to die in birth, it’s not acceptable,” Angelina Teny, wife of opposition leader and incoming vice president Riek Machar, told the AP. It is detrimental not only to the women but to the nation, she said.

Cradling her 3-day-old baby girl, Sonia Joyce said she kept her midwife close when giving birth in Juba’s Teaching Hospital last month because she was scared she might die.

She named her daughter, born two months early, Tabu, which means “tired” in Arabic.

“I named her that because she disturbed me a lot,” she said but looked lovingly at the child in her arms.

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S Sudan President, Opposition To Meet At Vatican 'Retreat'

In this Thursday, June 21, 2018 file photo, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, left, and opposition leader Riek Machar shake hands during peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. South Sudan's committee overseeing the fragile transition from civil war has approved almost $185 million in spending on vehicles, food and home renovations while the country's peace deal suffers from an alleged lack of funds, according to internal documents seen by The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)

BY NICOLE WINFIELD, SAM MEDNICK

VATICAN CITY (AP) — South Sudan’s president and opposition leader are expected to travel to the Vatican next week for what the Holy See says is a “spiritual retreat” and opposition officials say is an effort to help implement the country’s peace deal.

Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti confirmed the visit Wednesday. He said a spiritual retreat was scheduled next week at the Vatican for “the leaders of South Sudan.” He didn’t identify them or cite any political initiative.

The meeting comes a month after President Salva Kiir met with Pope Francis to discuss the peace process.

A deputy spokesman to opposition leader Riek Machar said Machar and two leaders from the South Sudan Opposition Alliance would attend the meeting with Kiir, and said an audience with the pope is also planned.

The spokesman, Manawa Peter, said the April 10 meeting would focus on confidence-building and helping bring the two leaders together.

South Sudan is emerging from a five-year conflict that killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions. A peace deal calls for the formerly warring sides to create a single functional government by May.

That’s when Machar is expected to return to South Sudan to once again become the president’s deputy — an arrangement that has collapsed in fighting in the past.

Machar’s participation in the Vatican meeting had been in doubt because he has been under house arrest for two years, most of it in South Africa. But Peter, the deputy spokesman, said he would be allowed to travel to Rome, and is expected to be released from house arrest altogether by the end of the month.

Peter said the Vatican initiative aimed to address the lack of trust that had foiled past peace efforts.

“If we want to bring the people of South Sudan together and mend the peace agreement, they need to have a good relationship and they need to build trust before we form the government,” he told The Associated Press. “We’re happy he’ll be able to go and meet with other political leaders from South Sudan. It will be good for all of them.”

Francis had hoped to visit South Sudan in 2017 along with the archbishop of Canterbury, but security conditions forced it to be called off. During his March 16 meeting with Kiir, Francis renewed his hope to visit, the Vatican said at the time.

Sam Mednick contributed from Juba, South Sudan.

South Sudanese Fear Leaving UN Protected Camps Despite Peace

In this photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, residents of the Mangateen camp for the internally-displaced line up to get water from a borehole, on the outskirts of the capital Juba, South Sudan. Tens of thousands of people are still sheltering in United Nations protected camps across the country, the legacy of an unprecedented decision by a U.N. peacekeeping mission to throw open its doors to people fleeing war. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

BY SAM MEDNICK

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN (AP) — Tracing his fingers over the metal fencing at a United Nations protected site in South Sudan’s capital, Nhial Nyuot Nhial hung his head as he contemplated going home after years of civil war. “At the moment it’s impossible for someone to leave,” he said.

The 33-year-old is among tens of thousands of people who are still sheltering in such camps across the country, the legacy of an unprecedented decision by a U.N. peacekeeping mission to throw open its doors to people fleeing war.

Nhial has been in the Juba camp since 2014, shortly after the country erupted in fighting. A fragile peace deal signed between President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar in September has brought little comfort. Like many in the camps, Nhial still fears for his life and refuses to leave.

What began as a temporary experiment is looking more like a permanent refuge for more than 190,000 people living in squalor in the six U.N. protected sites. Now the U.N. is pushing for the camps to close, amid warnings by the international community that rushing the process could re-ignite violence among ethnic groups.

“If or when the walls of the protection sites come down, there will still be dangerous intercommunal tensions and massive protection needs,” said Lauren Spink, senior researcher on peacekeeping for the Center for Civilians in Conflict, an international non-profit group.

An internal U.N. draft shared with aid agencies in September and seen by The Associated Press detailed a plan for “all services to be permanently relocated outside” Juba’s two U.N. sites by the end of January, according to the document.

The plan, which was never made public, has yet to be implemented and U.N. mission chief David Shearer said there has been no decision to close the camps at any particular time. “People moving back to their homes have to make their own decisions,” he told the AP.

Five years of fighting have killed almost 400,000 people and left more than seven million, or two-thirds of the population, in “dire need” of humanitarian assistance, according to South Sudan’s 2019 humanitarian response plan, which will cost $1.5 billion.

The cash-strapped government doesn’t have the means to resettle the more than four million people who have been displaced from their homes. More than two million of them fled the country.

“Given the population and the people that will need to be resettled, it’s really massive,” said Hussein Mar Nyuot, South Sudan’s minister for humanitarian and disaster management.

The government is largely relying on the U.N. and aid agencies to implement its resettlement plan, which includes safe passage and a three-month package of food for people who want to go home, Nyuot said. The government has said it will provide land and security for returnees.

At least one South Sudan expert said the number of people willing to leave the U.N. sites and return from refugee camps in neighboring Uganda and elsewhere will be a true test of peace.

“If we see that number significantly go down . in a meaningful, lasting way over several months maybe we can measure the peace agreement in steps like that, as opposed to just believing what politicians say and what statements are,” said Pete Martell, a journalist and author of a new book on South Sudan, “First Raise a Flag.”

In the last six months, about 17,000 have voluntarily left the camps, according to the U.N.

But continuing unrest in South Sudan has civilians worrying about whether the government can provide for and protect them. Even inside the U.N. camps, violence occurs.

In August, due to intercommunal clashes inside one of Juba’s U.N. sites, almost 3,500 people were relocated to Mangateen, a displaced persons’ camp run by the government on the edge of the city.

People there said the camp doesn’t feel safe.

“Living here is a danger,” said John Tut, Mangateen’s camp coordinator. Earlier this month government soldiers came to the gates and threw rocks at civilians while shouting insults, the 42-year-old said.

There is also not enough space. About 1,500 people currently live in a stifling warehouse waiting for the government to allocate more land for the site.

Seated on the floor of the warehouse, Elizabeth Nyamai shrugged. “We’re not living in good conditions, we’re living in fear with no basic needs being met,” the 28-year-old mother of five said. “I’ve lost hope in the government, whatever they say we don’t believe.”

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At Scene Of South Sudan Mass Rape, 'No One Could Hear Me'

In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 7, 2018, women and girls speak to members of a UN peacekeeping patrol as they walk to get food in Bentiu, a 38 kilometers (24 mile) journey where there are fears of being attacked on the main road, from Nhialdu in South Sudan. Rape has been used widely as a weapon in South Sudan and even after a peace deal was signed in September, humanitarians have warned of higher rates of sexual assault as growing numbers of desperate people try to reach aid. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

BY SAM MEDNICK, 12/09/2018

NHIALDIU, SOUTH SUDAN (AP) — Wrapping an arm around her stomach, the young woman hung her head and recounted the day in early November when she and a friend were bound, dragged into the bush and raped by four men with guns.

“My body hasn’t been the same since,” the 18-year-old said. The men attacked during an hours-long walk home to the South Sudan village of Nhialdiu. “I was crying and screaming but I was so far from the village that no one could hear me,” she told The Associated Press, which doesn’t identify survivors of sexual assault.

Shock and outrage followed when the medical charity Doctors Without Borders announced that 125 women and girls had been raped, whipped and clubbed over 10 days last month in a dramatic spike in sexual violence. “Horrific,” the United Nations secretary-general said. They were attacked as they made the long walk to a food distribution site in Bentiu, in Unity state.

In an exclusive look at the aftermath, the AP joined a U.N. peacekeeping patrol where the attacks occurred as humanitarians, rights groups and South Sudan’s government scrambled to find out more.

Rape has been used widely as a weapon in South Sudan. Even after a peace deal was signed in September to end a five-year civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people, humanitarians have warned of higher rates of sexual assault as growing numbers of desperate people try to reach aid. While some aid groups have quietly questioned whether all 125 people in the Doctors With Borders report were raped, they do not dispute that the problem has become grave.

The 18-year-old was not included in that report, and the real toll of sexual assault is not known.

Joining the U.N. patrol on Friday, the AP traveled the potholed road where the recent assaults took place. Shrouded by trees and elephant grass, some stretches provide cover for perpetrators to lurk.

Several local women said the violence is escalating.

Nyalgwon Mol Moon said she was held at gunpoint last month while two men in civilian clothes, their faces covered, stole her clothes, her shoes and the milk she meant to sell at market. Standing beside the road, pointing to her borrowed, oversized sneakers, she said she now tries to take alternative routes on her weekly walks to Bentiu.

She has no other choice. Food in Nhialdiu and nearby villages is scarce. Most people could not cultivate last season because of fighting and too much rain. Many rely on monthly aid from the U.N.’s World Food Program.

That means a walk of almost 40 kilometers (24 miles) to Bentiu town. Unable to carry the heavy rations back in one trip, most women leave some behind with relatives and make several journeys throughout the month.

Some said they make the 11-hour trek at least six times.

Alarmed by the sexual assaults, the World Food Program said it is prepared to bring distribution points closer to communities. The U.N. is now clearing the road from Bentiu to Nhialdiu of debris to make access easier.

No one has taken responsibility for the wave of assaults that the U.N. and African Union have condemned as “abhorrent” and “predatory.”

South Sudan’s government has acknowledged the assaults occurred in areas it controls, on the road between Nhialdiu and Bentiu and in surrounding villages. But it blames them on “unregulated youth” who fought alongside warring factions before the peace deal, Laraka Machar Turoal, deputy governor of Northern Liech state that was once part of Unity, told the AP.

Youth who were never officially integrated with armed groups have been left idle, guns in hand, to take what they want by force, Turoal said.

South Sudan’s government has called on all sides to demobilize the youth. It said it has deployed troops to areas in Unity state suspected of harboring criminals.

And yet the army in Nhialdiu has not detained anyone in the assaults and denies responsibility for finding the perpetrators, said John Dor, army commander for the area. He said they took place far from town, outside his jurisdiction.

But several local people said they knew of attacks in villages less than 15 kilometers from the army base. Some who were attacked at gunpoint said they believe the armed youth are affiliated with government troops. The government has done nothing so far to stop the violence, one woman explained.

The U.N., which has increased patrols, is pushing South Sudan’s government to take more responsibility. The U.N. Security Council in a statement on Saturday noted its willingness to impose sanctions on those who threaten the peace, including by sexual violence.

“They’re obliged to make sure everyone’s protected ... it’s not enough just to sit in one place and not be involved,” said Paul Adejoh Ebikwo, the U.N. mission’s senior civil affairs officer in Bentiu.

Unity state was one of the hardest-hit areas in the civil war, and Bentiu has changed hands several times. Government and opposition forces remain at odds, even as factions across the country try to reconcile. A meeting on Thursday to build trust was canceled because the parties couldn’t agree on a place to meet, said the independent monitoring group charged with overseeing the peace deal’s implementation.

Meanwhile, many women and girls are terrified.

Cautiously peering through the trees, several hesitantly emerged from the bush, inching toward the side of the road.

“We’re walking here because we’re scared of coming on the main path,” said Nyachieng Gatman. Three days ago, she said, she met a breast-feeding mother and young girl who had been raped in a nearby town.

Standing beside her, 11-year Anchankual Dood lowered her heavy bag of grain and gulped from a bottle of water.

“It’s a long distance to go and come from Bentiu,” the girl said. “But we do it because we need food and because we’re suffering.”

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In South Sudan, A New Approach In Ending Child Soldiers' Use

In this Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018 file photo, former child soldiers stand in line waiting to be registered with UNICEF to receive a release package, in Yambio, South Sudan. In an interview with The Associated Press in civil war-torn South Sudan, Romeo Dallaire, the former commander of the failed U.N. peacekeeping mission during the Rwandan genocide, says the current approach to combatting child soldier recruitment is not "sufficient". (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN (AP) — After coming face to face with “unpredictable” gun-waving children almost 25 years ago, the former commander of the failed U.N. peacekeeping mission during the Rwandan genocide dedicated his life to eliminating the use of children as weapons of war.

In an interview with The Associated Press in civil war-torn South Sudan, Romeo Dallaire, who is widely known for warning the U.N. about Rwanda’s massacre in 1994, said the current approach to combatting child soldier recruitment is not “sufficient.” Local security forces must be part of the solution, he said.

“My personal experiences of having to negotiate with, having to face children with weapons ... may not have been the right way of doing it,” Dallaire said.

His visit marked the launch of a three-year-program by the Canada-based Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. The $2.2 million project funded by Global Affairs Canada aims to work with at least 1,200 South Sudanese soldiers, police and prison personnel. The first round of training will include 50 senior army officers.

With 19,000 children associated with armed groups, South Sudan has one of the world’s highest rates of child soldiers, according to the U.N.

Almost 6,000 child soldiers were recruited by government and opposition forces in the past four years of fighting, according to a U.N. report released in September.

“The figures are unacceptably high,” Virginia Gamba, the new U.N. chief for children and armed conflict, said during a recent visit.

South Sudan leads the world with the highest number of child soldiers released, but rapid rates of recruitment are stifling progress. In the last two years UNICEF facilitated the release of over 900 child soldiers yet more than 1,650 children were recruited by armed groups over approximately the same period, according to the U.N.

“These kids’ families were poor when they left and they’re still poor when they go back, so kids return to the army once released,” William Deng Deng, chairman for South Sudan’s national disarmament, demobilization and reintegration commission, told AP. While it’s not government policy to recruit children, Deng said it happens because youth socialize with armed groups in their communities.

In an attempt to break this cycle, the Dallaire initiative keeps in mind the realities that both soldiers and children face in conflict. By providing guidance to soldiers on how to interact with children in specific scenarios, the training focuses on behavior change, said Shelly Whitman, the executive director.

“We don’t come in to do the finger-pointing. We come in to say, ‘How can we help change that?’” Whitman said.

One expert said that while persuading armed groups not to recruit children is an important step, the issue can only be addressed as part of a broader protection strategy.

“That’s the mistake that international donor governments continue to make, to believe that complex development challenges like the phenomena of child soldiers can be addressed with one-off interventions and innovations over a short funding cycle. It can’t,” said Samantha Nutt, founder of War Child USA, an organization that supports children and families in war zones.

The Dallaire initiative comes during South Sudan’s latest fragile attempt at peace, with opposition leader Riek Machar once again to serve as President Salva Kiir’s deputy in their third attempt at working together since the country gained independence in 2011.

Dallaire said he hopes his initiative, which already operates in several countries and plans to launch in Nigeria, Sudan and Congo, will advance the peace efforts. He said any force in South Sudan that even considers working with child soldiers should instead see children as a “liability to their engagement in the peace process.”

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